Zabeth
by JMK758
Summary: The team must stop an assassination and plan for a wedding. Can they do either?
1. Moving

This is my twenty-third NCIS Mystery and the third of my Third Season. The list of stories got so extensive I moved it, with summaries, to my profile.  
The usual legal disclaimers apply. I don't own anyone except Rev. Siobhan O'Mallory and original Agents.  
Please Review.  
Rating: T or NCis-17.

Zabeth  
By JMK758  
Prologue

Zabeth locks the portal, three heavy bolts snap into place to hold the steel door secure against anything an enemy could carry. Another equally skilled operative might penetrate her defenses, but she doubts any of the weak-willed civilians she's encountered so far could accomplish the task.

She unzips the black cat-suit from neck to groin and pushes the form-fitting material from her bare shoulders. The Kevlar suit, proof against short-range hand-held weaponry, fits her snugly enough to pull every male - and some female - gaze to her body. Its ostentation shields her by drawing eyes to where she wants them and away from her face.

She strips the tight protective armor from her body and secures it inside a steel closet. Clad now in equally protective Kevlar bra and cycle shorts - an operative cannot have too much protection while under cover deep in enemy territory - she reaches for the small handle at the right side of her bra, just under the cup.

The handle is less than an inch long, barely notable black on black. She won't draw it, of course; it'd taken far too much time and patience to prepare the garrote wire that crosses back and forth under her breast. A small slit in the cat-suit, a necessary break in her defenses, allows her to pull the half-meter wire free. Thence it is just a short time and her target is dispatched.

In a sleeve under her left breast, equally hidden from the crude detectors of the enemy, even to the scanners in their transportation facilities, is a two inch silver needle no thicker than a sliver. Hidden under her bra but reached through the body armor, it's just as accessible through the armored suit or without it. A small repository contains her most potent poison. Only a squeeze is needed. Virtually undetectable by the unimaginative resources of the enemy, it is potent enough that her target will be dead before his body reaches the ground.

In the front elastic band of her black shorts, as easily reached through a carefully obscured slit in the front of her suit, is an equally effective neurotoxin. It's a nerve inhibiter, designed to paralyze the target. It will stop respiration immediately. In a one point eight meter tall, eighty-four point two three seven kilo man such as her target, he will be helpless, unable to move and will asphyxiate within four point two minutes.

x

These things, deadly and silent, are designed for the point-blank, hands-on dispatch of her target. It sometimes requires her to bring natural talents into play to get close to the target and she is equally skilled with weapons or, if need be, bare hands. She prefers, however, long-distance assaults and on the wall before her is an excellent selection of resources.

The long-range weapons are for use against not only her target but any who might attempt to interfere with her mission or her escape.

x

She hadn't expected her mission to change so suddenly from infiltration to elimination, but such is the life of an Undercover Operative.

New orders have come in. Missions of this type usually follow a four-fold pattern, the first three of which are more common: infiltrate, gain trust and obtain information. In fairly rare situations, they move on to the fourth phase: eliminate the subject. The first phases can take weeks, months, even years.

But now there are new orders.

This operation is now in Phase Four.

Chapter One  
Moving

Ziva David steps off the elevator into Operations and heads for the bullpen closest to the floor to ceiling windows, which prime position she shares with the other members of her MCR Team. The bullpen had taken days to clean, to remove the blood and human detritus from, when a madwoman had blown herself up in its midst. Following a week-long 'hiatus' where the agents, with the aid of therapists and crisis counselors, had tried to put their lives back together the way workmen had tried to put the bullpen back together. A week of personal 'recovery' time had mirrored what was done - better - to the room.

Blood and worse had been cleaned from metal, cloth, plastic and glass. What paperwork couldn't be salvaged had been replaced from copies but much was gone, unsalvageable. NCIS documents were replaceable, the tiny touches that made a workplace homey could almost be salvaged or recreated - bless Abby for her care and ingenuity - but not everything could be restored or recreated.

Yes, it was much like their lives after this ultimate invasion. Their secure place, within and without, had been violated and some things will never be the same again.

This is their second day back but the first had been more than enough to batter them with the unexpected changes.

Rounding the half-wall of her cubical, she's about to toss her backpack over her desk to the floor but there's someone in the way.

"What are you doing at my desk?" she demands, her already tenuous good humor vanishing.

"I'm not at your desk," Senior Field Agent Anthony DiNozzo tells her with a disarming smile. "I'm at mine."

She's about to challenge this absurd claim, preferably with her version of a 'Gibbs wake-up call', when she observes all of his possessions on the desk, and then the desk itself. "You are right - this is your desk."

"Told you," he reminds her with that same disarming schoolboy smile, the one she never trusts and so frequently wants to hit.

x

Ziva left-faces to where DiNozzo ought to be but finds that Tim McGee - and his desk - occupy that spot. She turns further still and Michelle Palmer favors her with a shrug, smile and wave.

Extending the unpleasant scan, she finds that Gibbs' distinctive desk, rather than replacing Palmer's, is completely out of position, blocking what until now had been the rear exit of the bullpen.

Her own desk, with everything that had been upon it meticulously preserved, occupies Gibbs' old place. Completing the turn, she demands, "What is going on?"

Tony shrugs. "Well, after you cut out an hour early–"

"I had an appointment." It was with her crisis therapist and that's none of his business.

"Gibbs decided to make a few changes," he continues. "He said as long as changes were made he'd make a few of his own. He wants to keep a better eye on us, so for the last few hours of the day he had McMoving Man and I play a new version of musical desks - with the desks."

"He could see us all just fine."

"Tell him that. For years I've been sitting over there, suddenly I'm looking at things from the other side. Everything's in the wrong direction."

"Tell me about it," McGee gripes from where Tony used to sit. "I had all my systems wired with exactly enough wire, not a thing hanging, everything in neat rows. It took me until after midnight to get everything configured over here."

"Oh, I so feel for you, Rand McProbie."

x

Ziva turns to Michelle at McGee's old spot, now a stage closer to the front. "And what do you think of this?"

She shrugs, smiles and glances at Gibbs' station before assuring her that "I'm sandwiched between two macho, macho men. I'm happy."

"You are married."

"Pretty soon so will Tim be, that hasn't stopped him looking."

"That true, McGoogle-eyes?"

"No, Tony, that's not true." He glances around. "I just have to look at things differently now." The thing Tony - and Michelle - had implied is none of anyone's business.

"Well, I think it is crazy," Ziva doesn't even care if Gibbs could be standing right behind her.

"You be sure to tell him that when he gets down from MTAC," Tony advises.

Ziva continues on to her new position, Gibbs' old one, and throws her backpack to this floor. "And until now I thought the decisions that manage the Mossad were arbitrary.

"One cannot fathom the inner workings of Gibbs," DiNozzo tells her philosophically.

"According to Siobhan," McGee adds from behind her, "Gibbs' mind is like the Peace of God."

Ziva whirls on him, already fed up with this month. "And how is that?"

"It surpasses all understanding."

x

"Well, as long as he's up there for a while," Michelle says, getting up from her chair, "I'm going to get some fruit juice."

"Hang on," DiNozzo says, getting up as well, "I'll join you, I want some coffee."

"Me too," McGee says. "Bring you some, Zee?"

"Yes, thank you."

xx

Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge of the Headquarters Division of NCIS and head of one of twelve Major Case Response Teams, is having a bad morning and quite willing to share the pain.

He'd been, in spite of his most determined efforts, kept solidly out of the loop on all things NCIS, and now that he's back he's catching up and hates what he finds.

The fallout of the 'Millennium Debacle' and the revelation of how enemy agents had infiltrated the services - _and _how many highly placed military officials had been suborned - continues to spread. Already two Navy Admirals, an Army Colonel and a Marine General stand accused of charges ranging through espionage, sabotage, treason and murder. Even if these high ranking officers are the tip of a frigid iceberg, there are no accurate figures yet of how much deeper through the various ranks this conspiracy goes.

That so many supposedly loyal officers could be induced to betray their country and their oaths for personal gain is nauseating. Not even NCIS can lay a claim of immunity from this cancer; it had infected one of their most trusted agents, and that infection had killed half a score of loyal agents and left invisible scars on more that will be bourn through a lifetime.

The list of the suspected in the Navy and Marine Corps, men and women whose honor and integrity Gibbs and his friends would have - no, _had _- fought for, seems to grow daily. Granted that this is an aberration and, objectively, the number remains miniscule - the tiniest fraction of a percent - the emotional toll is out of proportion to the extent of the cancer. It's hard not to give in to outrage, just as it's sometimes hard to remember that a suspicion is not an accusation is not a conviction.

When the words 'Semper Fidelis' are rancid upon the lips of some men and women, it shakes more than faith. To a Marine those words express the essence of integrity. The betrayals are keenly felt, and the emotions of the faithful are volatile indeed.

x

While the fallout of the 'Millennium Debacle' had eased pressure on _his _team for a while - someone had to be kept for the hundreds of non-Millennium concerns, once the kingpins had been identified it fell back on NCIS, Army CID, Air Force OSI and others to find and root out the cancerous rank and file. And while the numbers involved were, admittedly, the most miniscule fraction of a percent, any cancer upon integrity sickens the soul.

Gibbs stalks out of MTAC, having had more than his fill of the statistics and sickening details and quite ready to reach his desk and bury himself in mundane wor, but first he wants two minutes to sit and relax with his favorite coffee. Glancing down over the metal rail into the cavernous Operations Center he halts. Rather than getting that moment to relax, he feels his blood grow hotter than any coffee.

xx

Alone for a few quiet minutes, Ziva works to put the morning's weirdness into perspective and get to work. She opens a file on her computer, the final report on the Hapburg case, but only gets through the first page before she senses a presence and looks up.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs stands before her desk, his former space, his expression an excellent impression of a thundercloud. "Doing a little _redecorating_, Officer Da-veed?"

"No, I – that is - you –"

"I don't want to hear it."

"_Whoa_!" Tony DiNozzo's voice cuts through the bullpen as he, McGee and Palmer halt at the entrance. They look about with evident surprise at the new configuration, particularly Ziva seated at the desk in the boss' position. "What's this? Did we _miss _something?"

"Apparently Ziva's idea of redecorating," McGee interjects.

"Must've taken you all night, Zee-váh," Tony says.

Michelle remains silent, not committing herself. The three enter and survey the woman's supposed handiwork.

"But I - you - he - I - I–!"

"Excuse me," a woman's voice comes from behind the trio. They turn and all five agents find a blonde woman looking apprehensively at them. Her blue uniform jacket features one medal bar at her breast and her shoulder boards display a single gold rank stripe.

She's escorted by a female agent, but the Ensign, her blonde hair windblown, her eyes telegraphing her distress, gives the woman no chance to make introductions. "Someone please help me stop a murder."

x

"Special Agent Gibbs," SA Patricia Abbate, miffed at being cut off, introduces "Ensign Carolyn Stillwell of the Enterprise."

"How can we help you, Ensign?" Gibbs asks, the supposedly innocent trio clearing a path for him as though imitating the Red Sea. Gibbs considers the analogy appropriate, for he's ready to lay down law such as Moses had never dreamed.

"It's my sister, Elizabeth," Ensign Stillwell explains, looking up to the towering agent, her voice drowning in apprehension. "I need you to stop her before she kills someone."

"Sit down, Ensign," Gibbs reaches behind DiNozzo's desk in David's former position, appropriates his rolling chair and escorts Stillwell through his team. He places the chair before his own desk at the bullpen's former exit and extends his hand in invitation. Undismissed, Abbate waits near the entrance.

Gibbs sits behind his desk, not liking the open space at his back nor the disorienting change in vantage. He'll change his people's vantage shortly.

"Thank you," Carolyn says, utterly failing to get comfortable in the seat, not realizing she feels more exposed than Gibbs does.

"Now," the Senior Agent directs their visitor, "who is your sister going to kill?"

"Bill."

DiNozzo, standing before his desk in Ziva's old post, smiles. At a warning glare from Gibbs, he keeps his silence.

"Bill who?"

"Sorry," Stillwell shakes her head, flustered. "I can barely believe I'm even here. This is such a nightmare. Bill Rolonio, he lives in Greenbelt, Maryland."

A brief flicker of eyes tells McGee to search for data on the potential victim.

"Why is your sister going to kill Mr. Rolonio?"

"I'm sorry." She gulps in air. "Perhaps I should start at the beginning?"

"Be a good idea."

x

Stillwell visibly works to organize her thoughts. "Elizabeth and Commodore Rolonio, you see, have been dating for–"

Gibbs leans forward. "Commodore?"

Stillwell backs away in her seat, immediately realizing her faux pas.

The rank of Commodore, abolished decades ago and since merged into that of Rear Admiral, had once referred to a Captain placed in charge of several ships. There are no serving Commodores and, so far as Gibbs knows, few living men who had ever held that rank.

"I'm sorry," the flustered woman says, shaking her head. "This has got me so scared I can't even think. It's like I've stepped into a nightmare. I can't believe any of this is happening."

"Tell me," Gibbs says.

"Boss?"

"What is it, McGee?" He only looks past the woman after finishing the question.

"I've tracked William Rolonio and, after a fashion, Commodore might apply."

Gibbs is usually impressed by the computer expert's speed, but won't say so aloud. He opens his mouth to ask but:

"What, British Navy?" DiNozzo cuts in, sounding equally dubious.

McGee manipulates a few controls on his computer and on the plasma screen between his and Michelle's desks appears the image of a thin, brown haired man in his early thirties. He wears a gold uniform shirt trimmed in black at the neck, a gold sunburst badge at his left breast while wide gold bands gleam about each cuff.

"Starfleet."


	2. Tal Shiar

Chapter Two  
Tal Shiar

Gibbs pushes himself slowly out of his seat, his temper rising ominously as Stillwell shrinks back into her seat and his voice carries her doom. "Starfleet?"

"Please, I can _explain_."

"Good idea, Ensign."

She still keeps her distance, looking up at the towering agent. "Bill isn't a real Commodore–"

"Ya think? Are you a real ensign, or is your story that you're from the Enterprise–?"

"Please! _Y__es_, I'm a real–. That is, yes, I'm real. And I really am assigned to the Carrier Enterprise. My sister Elizabeth, and Bill Rolonio, you see, they're … not."

"What _are _they?"

"Elizabeth's a Real Estate Agent, you see. Bill's a Florist. They met at StrepCon about two years ago, they belong to two different RPG groups in Virginia."

Gibbs opens his mouth to speak, but the voice everyone hears is McGee's. "Boss?"

The next person to cut him off will regret it. "What?"

"It's an S.T.R.P.G. gathering, a Star Trek Role Playing Game Convention."

x

Gibbs slowly reseats himself, not willing to ask if the Elf Lord had attended. He'll find out later how McGee came across this arcane bit of knowledge. He remembers too well the fantasy convention this past Memorial Day and has no intention of repeating the experience.

"So," Gibbs turns to the apprehensive woman, "your sister and this William Rolonio met at a Science Fiction convention and play roles. And now she wants to kill him?"

"Well, er, you see, kind of."

Gibbs has held his patience for too long. "Kind of?"

"Well … you see, Liz has … problems. She's been diagnosed with schizophrenia, you see. She's fine, when she's taking her meds, you see, but I found out she…."

"Hasn't been taking her medications. I get that."

"When she's off her meds, she can sometimes … slip."

'Where's Ducky?' "And what happens when she _slips_?"

"Well," Stillwell gropes for a diplomatic answer, can't find it. "Sometimes her grasp of reality isn't the greatest. Her … personality is … she's influenced by things, you see. When she takes them, her meds, she's fine," Stillwell insists rapidly, "she's the sweetest, most harmless thing, she'd never hurt a fly. She's stable, can do her job, you'd never know she had something wr–"

"_Ensign_!" The sharp word blasts the woman back into her chair.

"Yes, sir?"

Gibbs doesn't want to browbeat her, but "_Why _is your sister going to murder William Rolonio?"

x

"Sir, I came home to our apartment – I'm on a four day pass while the Enterprise is in Norfolk – and found her journal. Then I found that her gun is gone. Then I found a month old, thirty pill prescription three-quarters full. I read her journal and…." She pulls a black book, five inches wide by seven high out of her jacket pocket, hands it to Gibbs. "Sir, you have to believe me when I tell you Elizabeth wouldn't hurt a fly, but 'Zabeth', she's–"

"Zabeth?"

"Sir I realized, when I was reading her journal, I wasn't just reading Elizabeth's words; as it went on over the past few months, you see, I realized things were changing, gradually, and I wasn't reading Liz's words anymore, I was reading Zabeth's. Remember the Role Playing? Zabeth is an Operative in the Tal Shiar."

"_McGee_?" Gibbs calls without looking.

"Romulan Empire's version of the SS or KGB."

"That why she has a gun?"

"NO! That is ... she bought it for protection. It's _licensed_."

"What kind of gun?"

"A Beretta 92FS full automatic."

The specifications shoot through Gibbs' mind, 15 bullet capacity, empty the entire magazine in less than one second with one squeeze of the trigger. He won't say anything about granting a license to someone with psychological problems; as far as he's concerned, no one but Marines and Special Agents should ever have weapons and he's known too many exceptions there too. "So what is she to Rolonio?"

Stillwell swallows hard, plunges in despite the danger. "About a month ago Bill Rolonio broke up with her, you see. According to what I read in her journal and could find out from friends, Liz took it really bad. She stopped associating with her friends, stopped taking her meds…. Agent Gibbs, the Tal Shiar is to the SS or KGB what Starfleet is to America's Navy. Bill's a Commodore in Starfleet, Elizabeth plays a Tal Shiar Operative – peaceably in her RP games – but she's slipped. I think her … weakened personality– Agent Gibbs, Bill broke her heart and I think she's going to kill him for it!"

x

"McGee, show us Romulans." Unreal though the characters are, the agents need to know what they're dealing with. He remembers having heard the word before, had little idea what they are and could not have cared less. Now, while the man digs up his computer facts, NCIS has a real case to deal with.

"Have you spoken to Rolonio, warned him?"

"I _tried_," Stillwell insists. "I can't reach him. He doesn't answer his phone. I don't know how to reach him. I can't get an answer to my emails. I went to the police, they took a _report_! They say Elizabeth hasn't done anything yet, that she hasn't broken any–"

Gibbs knows too well the limitations of the MPDC, but also its advantages. He just hopes that one of those advantages will not come in the form of Homicide Detective Lieutenant Jeffrey Carpenter. "Who's her doctor?"

Stillwell pulls out the prescription bottle and hands it to him, he tosses it along the right side of the bullpen to DiNozzo at David's old position. Fortunately, the man is as good an agent as a ball player and doesn't need to be told what to do. When Gibbs leaves later, he'll bring the bottle with him to get Ducky's input. Meantime, he turns to McGee's former location while determining to resolve _this_ problem swiftly and painfully.

"Palmer, get me everything there is on Rolonio. McGee, after you get those Romulans, track down these PGR groups, names and addresses of their top brass, especially this Tal Shiar bunch. If she works for them, what kind of tactics will she use? Ziva, Mossad to Tal Shiar, can you think like her? Can we anticipate what she'll do and find her?"

"I shall try."

He won't say aloud that they should check hospitals and morgues, they're alert enough to check without his having to say it in front of the sister. With Elizabeth Stillwell's familiarity with her target, she might already have accomplished her mission.

"We need to know from you," he tells Carolyn, "who she's most likely to know best."

I'm … not sure, you see. She and I–"

"Does she live with you?"

"Yes."

"We'll go to your home, search her records."

"Boss, I have the material on Romulans and the Tal Shiar," McGee announces.

That was satisfyingly fast and interrupted any objection Stillwell might have raised. He looks toward the plasma screen between Palmer and McGee's new positions, determined to correct this disorientation as soon as their guest is out of earshot. "Let's see them."

x

A webpage, white on grey with blue hyperlinks and several scattered color photos, appears on the screen. "The site is Memory Alpha, it's a Wiki similar to–" he notices Gibbs' glare in time. "This page deals with the Tal Shiar. That's," he indicates with the cursor pointer a middle aged man with a sufficiently forbidding gaunt, angular face, "Koval, Chairman of the Tal Shiar in the Deep Space Nine episode 'Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges'." That sounds sufficiently forbidding: 'In time of war, the law falls silent'. What worse can they expect?

"The other," McGee directs the arrow past another man's face down to a woman's, "is Deanna Troi when she was under cover as a Tal Shiar operative." Aside from the pointed ears, and foreheads made up not quite as heavily as a Klingon's, what the figures have in common is a hairstyle reminiscent of a helmet, which ends in sharp edges that frame their faces.

McGee clicks on a Search box, types a word and the image changes. The woman depicted wears a similar uniform but her helmet-styled hair is blonde. "That's Sela, played by Denise Crosby–"

"Isn't she 'der Bingle's' granddaughter?" DiNozzo asks, grateful to have something to focus on.

"She is. I just wanted to show they're not all black haired." He glances pointedly at Carolyn Stillwell's blonde tresses.

"Surprised you didn't know that, DiNozzo," Gibbs bites.

"I do movies, not _tee-vee_. And the movie ones didn't look anything like her. Wish they did, she could interro–"

"A little less fantasizing, DiNozzo!"

"Shutting up, boss."

x

Gibbs returns his attention to Carolyn Stillwell, who appears equally shaken by the on-screen revelations and the mini-confrontation. She'll have a lot to be shaken about later. "Does your sister dress up like that?" He doubts it. Given the make-up, it would make Zabeth too easy to find.

"She had that haircut the last time I saw her, before I shipped out."

"And that was?"

"Three months ago."

"She would not have the Romulan face," Ziva predicts. "In her own mind, she probably considers herself under cover, disguised as a human, possibly wearing a wig to disguise _this_ haircut."

It's a logical deduction, Gibbs decides, though he'll jump to no conclusion. He'd like to track a uniformed Romulan agent, but knows it'll never be that easy. "Do you have a picture of your sister?"

Carolyn takes her wallet from her pants, opens it, pulls out a picture and hands it to Gibbs. "That's Liz on the left."

As he'd supposed, the woman is blonde. Does she look enough like Carolyn - though a younger version - to pass on a quick glance? Enough to get her on, say, the Enterprise? Gibbs doesn't want to believe anyone could be unobservant enough to be fooled but he knows better. Rather, he has to hope Elizabeth Stillwell won't be so far removed from reality that she'd seek her Starfleet target aboard the Enterprise.

This way leads to madness and not just for their quarry.

"Got any of her as a Romulan?"

Stillwell shrugs. "She was in a Costume Parade at a convention last May."

"At the Hotel Meritz?" McGee cuts in. "The Greater East Coast Comic Art Convention?"

"You were there?" Carolyn is surprised, eyes widening when she looks again at the agents in this new light, this time recognizing them from the dramatic on-stage chaos of that Costume Parade.

"Oh, we were there," DiNozzo confirms archly. Between NCIS and the FBI, the chaos of that final event of the convention had led to a shocking dénouement to the hunt for a killer, enough chaos to sear the event into too many memories.

It had taken several months for the lives of the agents to be resolved after that debacle. The event, and its many aftermaths, had broken and led to the later breaking of more of Gibbs' rules than any other case in their history. It's an experience none of them ever wants to repeat.

x

"We'll need any pictures you have," Gibbs tells Stillwell, more to override the recognition in her eyes. He glances to the woman standing near the bullpen entrance. "Agent Abbate, escort the Ensign down to Ducky. I'll be with you in a few minutes."

As Carolyn Stillwell leaves with the agent, she asks "Where are we going?"

"Autopsy."

No one left behind in the bullpen sees the color drain from Stillwell's face.

x

"DiNozzo, McGee, Palmer: front and center." None of them are foolish enough to hesitate. When they're lined up before his desk, he comes around it. At the same moment, Ziva steps behind the trio.

"I like strong women." He glances at the new bullpen configuration. "How strong do you think David is?"

Ziva, standing behind them, hits the men with a double strike.

"Thank you, boss," DiNozzo says, as though he'd been the one to inflict the punishment.

"Have those desks back and everything working in twenty minutes."

"Twenty minutes, that's impossible boss. It took us–" Ziva gives him another and he turns on her. "You know, that hurts!"

"_Good_."

Gibbs signals the men to begin work and turns his attention to Michelle.

"I didn't do anything, sir. I wasn't even here."

"No, you just aided and abetted their escape."

She backs away, hand to the back of her head, and collides with Ziva. "You wouldn't." Suddenly she's not so certain of their 'understanding'. But though Ziva, with whom there is no such understanding, is ready Gibbs shakes his head, calls her off.

"No," he decides. "I think in your case, I'll talk to your husband." She blinks, surprised at this turn. "I'm sure he can find a better place to smack." He sends her to help with the moving, takes the pill bottle off DiNozzo's desk and departs for Autopsy, leaving the trio under Ziva's supervision.

Back turned to them, none of the agents see Michelle's growing smile as she considers tonight's lesson. 'Maybe being bad isn't such a bad thing.'

xxx

Halfway across the District, on New York Avenue, Reverends Siobhan O'Mallory and George Donaldson discuss less dramatic changes to their own office arrangements.

"So, big day coming fast," George Donaldson says broadly to his partner at the desk to his right. "You all ready?"

She laughs. "I'll be _ready_ on the 18th."

"I wasn't referring to that," he quips, but his suggestive tone makes her blush.

"Neither was I."

"So," he says to 'spare' her, "your gown looks good."

"Thanks." She'd tried it on yesterday to get his opinion. It's an off-the-shoulder white enhanced by numerous sparkling faux-gems intended to catch the light of the tall, stained glass windows as well as the chandeliers of the catering hall.

"I notice there's no train."

"I'm a modern woman. Besides, there's only one man who should be thinking about my caboose," she smiles, glad to get him back in turn for making her blush.

"You'll be gone a long time on this international sabbatical of yours."

"Only 15 days. And you'll have a lot to do while I'm gone, just changing the signs and letterheads."

"So you're going with 'McGee'?" He'd never had any doubt but can't miss the opportunity to tease her. She does it to him often enough.

"Of _course_. What did you think?" She'd left no doubt about her intentions over the past three months. "I'm no 'liberated 21st Century girl' when it comes to this. I'm all tradition."

He doesn't consider the change of mind odd, not with her. "I was just hoping to avoid the inevitable 'Mother McGee' jokes."

"Well, get used to them. I'll have to."

"Still, it won't be the same," he says wistfully.

She gives him one of her most devastating grins, the kind designed to let him know he's in trouble. "Well, look at it this way: You're not losing a Curate, you're gaining an Agent."

"Oh joy."

xxx

"An interesting problem," Dr. Donald Mallard assures his old friend. He has seated Ensign Carolyn Stillwell in his chair while the men converse beside his desk. Palmer wisely stands well off by the far silver table. Not having a body to autopsy, they are in their civilian attire, which is fortunate because Gibbs had given no thought to this before having Stillwell escorted downstairs. "One of the symptoms of Schizotypal Personality Disorder is its effect upon a pliable mind."

"Split personality?"

Ducky shakes his head, picking up a book Gibbs presumes the man had obtained when he'd heard the initial story from Stillwell. He couldn't have known about the need for it in advance.

Could he?

"Despite common misconception, there is limited correspondence between Schizophrenia and Multiple Personality Disorder, except inasmuch as one is a subset of the other. Schizophrenia is a much broader term encompassing a wide range of disorders. I shall have to contact the young lady's psychiatrist to determine specifics in her case." He sets the book down unopened.

"For Schizotypal Personality Disorder to be diagnosed, at least four indicators must be present: Evidence of odd beliefs separating thinking from reality, High Social Anxiety, the patient must have occasional illusions or odd perceptual experience or have peculiar patterns of communication, such as metaphorical, vague or digressive speech."

'Digressive speech?' Gibbs thinks. 'Noooo.'

"One will also expect to find inappropriate or constricted emotional responses and frequently undue suspiciousness.

"It is also not uncommon to find that the subject has no close friends or confidants other than family and he, or she, will exhibit odd or eccentric behavior or appearance."

Gibbs turns to Stillwell. "How many of these things sound like your sister?"

It's obvious the woman doesn't want to admit it. "Too many."

"In what way?" Ducky presses far more kindly than Gibbs is willing to.

"Behavior, obviously." She can't help but admit to this, and eccentric behavior or appearance she can't possibly get out of admitting to. "She's never really had a lot of friends, you see, not like anyone she can confide in. She's ... well, you see, I guess I have to say she's ... socially awkward."

The men sympathize, and yet can tell there's more. They'll get the more, but know it can't be easy for the woman to be objective in subjecting her sister's psyche to the clinical analysis of strangers.

They can each see, as well, a measure of guilt, can almost read her thoughts. Could she have done something more to help her sister? Did she really have to follow orders and ship out? Could she have chosen family over duty?

"What can we do?" Gibbs asks, thinking ahead to the unpleasant prospect of having to take out a foreign assassin, or in this case a local assassin-wannabe. He hopes Ducky can give him a better alternative.

x

"Personality is a deeply ingrained thing," Ducky tells him, opening the book upon the desk without actually looking at it, easily falling into his pedantic manner, "and normally it takes vast effort or perhaps a traumatic incident to disrupt it. One's ego is generally established during the early, formative years of childhood. By the time we reach adolescence, we know who and what we are." He finally looks at the book, selects the right page and doesn't read from it.

"Schizotypal Personality Disorder, in the simplest terms, can dislodge that foundation. In the throes of the variant which I suspect we are dealing with here, one can watch a pirate film and come away thinking one is a swashbuckler, or perhaps more to the present, immerse oneself in one or more of the Star Wars films and come away thinking one is a Jedi Knight."

"I've seen that."

x

"In a normal, well defined personality, the effect of immersion into a fictional world is also present, but it is fairly rapidly dispelled.

"The influence, the euphoria of losing one's self in a new world or life, can last for minutes, but it fades as the world of reality asserts itself upon the psyche. In someone suffering from schizophrenia, however, the core personality sometimes cannot reassert itself. The fantasy personality dominates."

"To what extent?" Gibbs asks.

Ducky closes the unread book. "I'm hardly qualified to determine that based upon our current conversation and what little I've been told about the young lady's case. I would say, however, that in John Vincent DeKalb we had a rather extreme taste of it."

Gibbs had hoped his friend wouldn't make this connection. DeKalb's fascination with vampires had led him to believe he _was _an actual vampire, and he'd left a trail of beautiful female corpses behind him.

Abby Sciuto had come too close to being one of his victims.

x

"I am not at all familiar," Ducky continues, "with this Tal ..." he turns to Stillwell, "Shiar?" She nods. He addresses Gibbs again. "However, I can tell you that just as John DeKalb's behavior was consistent with his fixation on vampires, Miss Stillwell will behave consistently with her research into this organization of Romulans."

"So we need to find an expert in Romulans?" Gibbs almost dreads the prospect.

"More specifically, this branch of them."

"Know of any?"

"Good Lord, no, my television viewing has been geared more to Masterpiece Theater than to Star Trek."

"Palmer," he turns to the younger man hovering in the background near the first silver table, "you know anything about this bunch?"

Jimmy is reluctant to answer, but considering that things are, fortunately, dead in autopsy, an admission might allow him to actually get out in the field alongside 'Chelle.

"I watched it - that is, I know quite a bit. Not as much as Ab–" His halt almost sprains his tongue, and he realizes he'd almost talked himself out of the opportunity in favor of Gibbs' preferred resource on all things hinky. "Yes, I do."

"You and your wife put your heads together. Your _heads!_" Jimmy had made the mistake of grinning in happy anticipation. "Come up with what this woman's going to do."

x

Though he's never revealed it, Gibbs knows that during his retirement to Mexico and even thereafter, DiNozzo and Palmer had instituted the same sort of working relationship he and Ducky enjoy. He considers it to bode well for the next generation of NCIS. He turns back to Ducky. "Can you spare him for a while?"

"Good Heavens, I'm frequently taxed to come up with novel ways of getting rid of him. Please, he's all yours."

Jimmy, reveling in the prospect of _investigative _field work alongside his wife rather than the collecting of dead bodies, feels no sting from his mentor's banter.

x

Gibbs, however, isn't done. "Assuming we find 'Zabeth'," he asks Ducky, "how do we snap her back into being Elizabeth Stillwell again?"

"Well, certainly a dose of her medication would be beneficial, but before then you will have to be very cautious."

Gibbs pulls from his pocket the bottle of prescription medication, sees an 'ah-ha' in Ducky's eyes but doesn't get an explanation, so he turns to the apprehensive, silent Ensign. "Does your sister become violent when she's Zabeth?"

"I barely know Zabeth, and really only from her journal, you see. When I was deployed, Liz was deeply into RPGs, maybe because she was lonely? She's always been a fan of the show, we'd had some fun times growing up, you see, but it was only later that ... That problems developed. Not until both mom and dad had died, and now thinking back I wondered if that had anything to do with it, but her ... Problems were always controllable with medications."

"And you didn't see these PRGs as dangerous?" he demands.

"I had orders for Iraq. She swore she'd never forget her meds, what more could I do?"

Gibbs won't give the answer that they know too well. Nothing.

"All right, what about this Starfleet group?"

"There're organized into various ships, that is, the Federation side is. The class of ship is based on the size of the group. Bill's ... well, I guess you'd say he ranks as head or coordinator of a couple of groups, which is why he's a 'Commodore'. He's got seven 'ships' under him, all the groups in Maryland, you see."

"Travels a lot, then?" She nods. "How do they keep in touch?"

"Phone, e-mail, a web page, conference calls, the usual."

Their first job is finding this man, assuming he's still alive. "How deeply into this is he?"

"It's a hobby, a chance to socialize and have fun - after his florist job is over."

It's getting into Spring, with Saint Patrick's Day - and McGee's wedding - in two days. Gibbs hopes Rolonio is in his truck delivering shamrocks and that, while it's a distraction from their job, the team can get the groom to the church on time.

Case first.

He turns to Ducky and Jimmy. "Duck, get what you can out of that diary."

"Well, actually, Jethro, it is a Journal, not a diary. You see, a diary will be a record of daily, dated entries while a journal would not necessarily correspond to particular or even consecutive days."

"Duck."

"Of course, Jethro."

Gibbs starts out with Stillwell, glances back to Palmer. "Come along, Black Lung."


	3. Defining the Enemy

Chapter Three  
Defining the Enemy

When Gibbs returns to the bullpen with Ensign Carolyn Stillwell and Jimmy Palmer, the desks are back where they belong. He knows that rewiring the computers and so on will take longer than he'd allotted, but he sees DiNozzo and McGee were smart enough to hook up everything on his desk first. Now the men, and Michelle, work on organizing their own desks while Ziva leans a hip on the edge of hers, supervising.

"One thing we should be searching for," Ziva David comes over to tell him when Gibbs is settled, "is her Sanctuary." Stillwell sits in a chair beside Gibbs' desk and Jimmy takes a station behind Michelle's chair, not completely crowding her but certainly close enough as she picks up to pay attention. "Every Mossad Operative creates his or her own," Ziva continues, "but the technique is neither exclusive nor unknown." She steps into the central area, the better to address the gathering.

"The basic sanctuary serves as an armory and a stash for money, alternate identifications and occasionally a safe place in which to hide. They are secret and occasionally mobile."

"Meaning we could be looking for a small mobile home, RV or trailer," Gibbs concludes, not liking the prospect.

"It is not unknown."

"Where's yours?" DiNozzo interjects.

She turns to him and the room's temperature drops five degrees. "I am an NCIS liaison." She intends to let him conclude, if he wishes, that she would no longer use one.

"That is need-to-know," she says to counter the conclusion. The smile she gives him before turning back to Gibbs is almost a smirk, as though to say 'figure out for yourself if and where it is'. She sees in his eyes that he'd love to take up the challenge. She tries to decide if she should threaten to kill him, but in Carolyn Stillwell's presence she keeps to the point.

"The sanctuary will appear innocuous, may not even be recorded as being owned by her. I have been searching credit card and other records since my computer was restored to me. I have yet to find it."

"Liz took $6,000 from our joint account two days ago," Carolyn Stillwell tells them.

No one needs elaboration. With such an infusion of cash, Elizabeth Stillwell can stay off the grid for an extended period - probably long enough to execute Rolonio.

x

Gibbs gets up, approaches the plasma screen on which is displayed William Rolonio's Maryland driver's license, the better to read the man. "DiNozzo, what do you have on Rolonio?"

"Not a lot, boss," he admits, anticipating a headache, but he has a good reason for the delay. "We've been busy putting–"

"Later."

"Later, boss. Well," he turns back to the enlarged image of the license, not tempting fate to bring Gibbs closer, "we have Rolonio's address and I can head out there, look around. Finding his shop's as easy as looking in the yellow pa–"

Seeing Gibbs' expression, he quickly shuts up. He knows the supervisor has no intention of letting Stillwell know her sister's case hadn't been their top priority.

"You and Ziva." Gibbs doesn't have to be more specific. "McGee, Palmer," he turns to them, "and Palmer, what is this Tal Shiar?"

The trio exchange glances. By tacit agreement McGee takes the question before Gibbs' patience is strained. "The Romulan Empire was conceived in the original show of the late '60's, but didn't get into real detail until the 'Next Generation's' second season in 1993. It was intended to relate to the Roman Empire just as the Klingons equated to the Soviet Russians, even to the core planets being Romulus and Remus, after the brothers who founded Ro–" He sees Gibbs' expression just in time.

"Well, the Romulan Empire was developed in more detail in the several succeeding series and movies. The Romulans were described as being creatures of contradiction, but on the whole they were intelligent, ruthless and arrogant but neither vicious nor cruel. They control their own civilian population through the same methods that real life dictatorships use: secret police, martial law, informants and heavy penalties for lack of loyalty. The Tal Shiar was charged, on the whole, with keeping the administration in power by whatever means necessary."

"Those groups generally do not encourage private vendettas," Ziva points out.

"Do you think 'Zabeth' will stand down if one of her Tal Shiar bosses tells her to?" Gibbs doesn't believe so. It can't be that easy.

"I doubt it," Jimmy, tucked into the position of safety behind Michelle's desk, mutters.

x

There's a moment of deadly silence. When Jimmy becomes aware of it, he notices his wife staring up at him in wide-eyed consternation and looks at Gibbs.

"_WELL_?" the man demands impatiently.

"I – er – that is –." Michelle slaps his leg with the back of her hand. Suddenly this out-of-the-way spot doesn't seem so safe. "I think she might make herself into a conserg."

Gibbs' eyes do a remarkable impression of phaser banks building to full power.

"A sleeper agent," Jimmy finishes quickly.

"I agree," Ziva interjects.

Jimmy's grateful for her help in breaking Gibbs' phaser lock. "That is, if she's fixed on killing the guy, she might not take any other orders. She'll just make it in her mind that he's not superior enough to give the order."

Gibbs had been afraid of that. How do you work the system when the rules can keep changing? "Who _is _superior enough?"

"The - uh - Praetor. That's like the Em–"

"I _get _it. McGee, get on that infernal machine of yours and find this Tal Shiar leadership." Normally he would never consider involving an outsider in their operation, but nothing about this situation is normal. "I want everything they know about her. If Starfleet is the enemy, she'll stick closer to her own people." He turns back to the cornered pair.

"Palmer ... and Palmer, everything you have on the television and movie versions of this thing, on my desk within the hour. Zabeth'll probably be more like them than the other game people. We need to know how she thinks. Ziva, _find _this Sanctuary. Receipts for rentals, supplies, _hell_, weapons."

The agents rapidly turn their attentions to these duties and Gibbs stands, waving to Stillwell. "Come with me."

xx

In MTAC, Gibbs and Stillwell face the huge image of Captain William Bronskie. "I'm going to have to hold on to your ensign for a while."

"Why?"

"She's a material witness in an ongoing investigation."

The huge face darkens. "We ship out in 31 hours."

"Might take longer than that, skipper." He doesn't want it to, but he has no way to predict how long the hunt will take.

Bronskie has no trouble with a prediction. "I want her aboard in 30 hours." The screen goes to a chromabar test pattern.

Stillwell looks up at Gibbs, her face a mask of distress. Confronting her C.O. hadn't been high on her comfort list; now she dreads returning to the Enterprise. "What are you going to do? How can you solve this in a day?"

"I'll worry about that. Meantime, I'll send an agent back home with you, in case your sister tries to contact you."

xx

"McGee," Gibbs barks from the bullpen entrance, not looking at the startled man as he continues on to his desk, "gear up and come with us. Palmers, you ready with that Tal Shiar stuff?

Michelle doesn't remind him he gave them an hour - ten minutes ago. "Almost ready, sir."

"Ziva, have Marie Watson meet us in the garage in five with an overnight bag. She'll stay with Ensign Stillwell."

Ziva picks up her phone, not daring to say the word striving to leap off her tongue. She doesn't want to see Watson's face either when she gets this order.

"Then you and DiNozzo hit that Florist Shop."

She makes a greater effort for silence.

xxx

Gibbs wants to see the Stillwell apartment. Getting a signature on a Consent-to-Search form is easy; he'll let Michelle Palmer sweat the fact that since the sisters don't share a room, the search will have to include Elizabeth's bedroom, which is beyond Carolyn's right to authorize.

The apartment door opens to the living room, and he directs Ensign Stillwell to stay with Agent Marie Watson while he and McGee look around. He wants to take in the dwelling in a systematic and orderly examination, and for that he doesn't need a guide.

Beyond the huge living room, to the left are two side-by-side bedrooms, the right one of which is identified as Elizabeth's. Kitchen and bath are on the opposite side.

x

Elizabeth's room is disturbing, Gibbs feels like it'd be like walking into DiNozzo's head if DiNozzo were a Trekkie. Posters on the walls are supplemented by framed pictures and enough props and memorabilia to outfit a movie. The bookcases that surround them are crammed with seemingly every Star Trek book ever published and Gibbs fears there might even be some pre-release galleys. He sees McGee reach almost reverently for a 40-year-old ray pistol. "Touch it for a headache."

"Err, yes, boss." He puts his hands into his pockets - crime scene protocol - but Gibbs sees he can't erase the longing from his eyes as he looks at a black and gold 1960's flip-top radio, or maybe it's a sci-fi prediction of a cell phone? It sits on top of a dresser next to a sleeker, silver, slightly curved ray gun.

The problem with these artifacts, Gibbs realizes, is that he's seen them before. "Aren't those from the wrong side?"

"Federation equipment, yes. There's also a Romulan uniform," Gibbs hadn't missed the very wide-shouldered garment hanging outside the closet, "and over there is a disruptor." On a shelf, upright on a display stand, sits an ornate hand weapon. Some guns are designed to look dangerous, some threatening; this one looks evil. It's a weapon that enjoys its job.

The only thing that looks normal, maybe because it's closed, is the thin black laptop sitting on the table in the far corner, and even this has a disturbing sticker pasted upon the lid. A tiny blue light flashes at one second intervals. "Check it out."

They already wear latex gloves. McGee lifts the lid and in seconds the hibernating machine awakens. The symbol on the center of the screen is the same as the one adhered to the top of the machine, a stylized bird of prey with outstretched wings, clutching in its claws two globes. The starry background has on the right side a large green spaceship, also seemingly reminiscent of a bird in flight but with what seems to Gibbs to be a lot of wasted open space in the middle.

It's firing a green ray downward to the left into the saucer of a white ship that Gibbs privately admits he recognizes. The heavily damaged white ship is definitely losing this fight.

McGee calls up a list of the ten most recently accessed files, opens each of them in turn into separate windows. All are MS Word documents. "Uh-oh."

Gibbs hates 'uh-ohs'. "What is it?" The words on the screen are gibberish, not even letters in any language he's ever read. The symbols are angular, seem to be–

"It's in Romulan."

"Well, what's it say?" McGee looks back at him, distress such as Gibbs frequently wants to hit etched upon his face. "Come on, you _spoke _that lingo when we hauled in Robert Miller." They'd found the supposed kidnapper of his alleged daughter disguised as a Klingon at last year's Halloween costume party. "Why can't you read it?"

"That was Klingon, not Romulan."

Gibbs gives him his best glare. If the man knows one, why couldn't he be efficient and know the other? After all: "Neither one's a language."

"Someone did create a key, they even used to teach college classes in it. I was going with a–."

Gibbs waves him to silence, doesn't want to hear about McGee's former loves; particularly when the man's getting married in two days. "You telling me we need a Romulan translator?" He's already changed his mind once, has decided there is no way he's going to bring in someone from Stillwell's RP group. Outsiders can't be trusted not to mess things up and he's already dealing with finding one psycho.

"I can translate it. The key will be out there ... some website. The font's just a commercial program, it uses simple transposition. It'll be just like any other encryption."

"Bag it." He turns his attention to the rest of the room. There has to be _something _normal in here.

x

It takes long enough searching through Trekkian minutia to find it. When Gibbs does, it's in the blank notepad coupled with the woman's datebook. "There's some impressions here."

McGee crosses the room and shines his maglight onto the paper, tilts the beam to different angles, changing the intensity from focused to diffuse. Try as they do, no change yields a sufficiently legible impression. They can almost see indistinct words and numbers, but the impression isn't firm enough to read.

"This is a job for Super Sciuto." McGee, seeing Gibbs' expression, immediately regrets the joke.

Fortunately, the rest of the black leather bound folder is far less obscure. Just as Elizabeth's journal had been in English, so is her address- and date book. Rolonio's address, phone and other particulars are prominently noted. Future dates are meticulously documented, particularly tomorrow's dinner date.

"They broke up," McGee reminds him, avoiding a head slap because the reminder is reasonable. "Do you think they'd keep the date?"

"Adolfo's in Dupont Circle, that's halfway across town. We need to know why it's significant. You got that computer ready?"

"In the bag."

Gibbs walks out with the black booklet.

xxx

Zabeth checks her PADD, confirming the schedule for her target. She'd spent considerable time and effort documenting his habits while she'd worked her way into his confidence, but she doesn't want to rush this assignment. Her knowledge of Commodore Rolonio's habits is her greatest weapon. She knows the man's projected movements, but she must choose the place of termination with care. Her orders were specific, but the application is open to interpretation, based upon changing circumstances.

This is neither Romulus nor even Earth. This planet is primitive, level C on the Richtor Scale of Culture, perhaps most closely approximating Earth's early 21st Century. In some ways this is beneficial, in some ways not.

Rolonio, assigned to oversee a Federation conference, still cannot operate openly on this backwater planet any more than she can. If she's to avoid calling attention that could jeopardize her assignment, she cannot work openly. She needs a plan as daring as it is careful: dispatch the target and make it safely to her shuttle without being caught by the local authorities. Primitive though they are, she's sure they will not take kindly to her mission.

That is why she is armed with, not a disruptor, but a native projectile weapon and also carries appropriate documentation for it. The document bears the fictional name of her undercover persona, 'Elizabeth Stillwell'. Though the native projectile weapon is of limited range and woefully inefficient, it won't be noticed as a disruptor would be and it will kill.

Complex plans are inefficient, hers is simple: acquire the target, choose the optimum location and time, execute him and get back to the ship.

Thence to Romulus.


	4. Hunting a Romulan

Chapter Four  
Hunting a Romulan

When Tony DiNozzo double-parks his car before the Green Belt Florist on Edmonston Road in Greenbelt, Maryland, Ziva David is first out. She has no feeling for the mid-50's balm after the long winter, her anger with her partner keeps her warm enough. "There is a space four car lengths ahead," she tells him sharply, further annoyed at having to squeeze out the limited room that the door has to open.

"I like to be free for high speed action."

"You are not Gibbs," she bites, squeezing between two cars to reach the curb in front of the gated shop.

"Well, then maybe I just don't like tight spaces," he says, taking advantage of a wider space she couldn't reach to arrive on the sidewalk before her.

"That is not what you have been telling me for years," she tells him. "The truth is you enjoy the piques your badge brings."

"Perks, not piques, and what if I do?"

"You fit in well in this investigation."

"What do you mean?"

"These people also never grew up." She waves a hand sharply at the storefront. "Days before a holiday almost as obsessively and pervasively observed in this country as in Ireland and this shop is locked up tighter than a kettle."

"Drum."

"Precisely."

He decides not to pursue this further. Though the windows on either side of the door are amply decorated for the upcoming holiday, both in signage and petals, the heavy gates stretched before them belie any preparation or participation.

They go to the windows, peering past the foliage on either side of the entrance. With the afternoon sun behind them, they can see that all is in order. The shop awaits only its owner, who at three o'clock is still to be found. There is a sign that says the shop will reopen on the 16th, no other explanation is offered for the delay.

By unspoken consent, the agents turn to the establishments on either side, a discount store on Tony's side, a Pharmacy on Ziva's.

x

It doesn't take Tony long to wish he'd tried his luck in the Pharmacy. He's sure Akmed does good business, just not with people who speak English.

"No, I'm talking about the man who runs the flower shop. You know, flower?"

"Ah, back of store."

He's already been directed - twice - to the gaudy artificial flowers probably gathering plastic dust. With a florist next door, _when it's open_, who wants plastic flowers?

"No. Man. Shop. Next ... door."

"Folding doors, right over there, back of store."

"No." He takes a deep breath, setting up for strike nine. "I'm ... looking ... for the man ... who runs the ... flower ... shop ... next ... door."

"Ah, shop for flowers!"

"_Yes_!" DiNozzo feels he's won a major victory in International Relations.

"Back of store."

x

Ziva turns from the oppressively perky nineteen-year-old blonde at the pharmacy counter and almost collides with DiNozzo. "Oh, Tony," she takes a step back and composes herself, not liking to be startled and enjoying sudden collisions even less. "William Rolonio hasn't opened in two days. There was no indication anything was wrong." She's surprised he doesn't perk up at the sight of the beauty on the other side of the counter.

"Great. You can try your luck next door."

"Next which door?"

"Don't _you_ start," he growls.

Not certain what to make of this and not wanting to know, Ziva decides there are indeed times when silent compliance to orders is the most peaceful course. As she walks away, she hears a note of near desperation in her partner's voice.

"You got any aspirins?"

"Yes," the girl tells him perkily, "back of the store."

xxx

"Tell us about Adolfo's," Gibbs directs Ensign Carolyn Stillwell in the living room of the apartment she shares with her sister Elizabeth. Tim McGee stands by, Elizabeth's notebook in his hand.

"Awhofo's?"

"It's a restaurant in Dupont Circle."

"I'm sorry, I don't know it, you see."

Gibbs already sees very well that Stillwell's use of that phrase increases with her nervousness. It's the most useful indicator of her state he could ask for; even DiNozzo could follow it.

"Is that where you think you'll find Liz?"

"She had an appointment to meet Rolonio there tomorrow." He hates being put into a position of giving information rather than receiving it.

"But they broke up."

He hates even more being told things he already knows. "It's still our best lead to find one of them."

Ziva had already called seconds before he and McGee had left the bedroom to report that she'd located and called the top Romulans in DC, a Commander, a Sub-Commander and a Centurion - apparently they use the Roman designations - who'd said they'd had no idea Elizabeth Stillwell would take the game so seriously as to hurt anyone. Gibbs, hearing the familiar story, decided he doesn't have the time to spare to break it.

Until they know Rolonio and Stillwell didn't make the appointment to try to resolve the breakup, they have to treat it as a possible chance to capture the woman before she injures someone. "Do you have those pictures I asked for?"

"Yes," Stillwell says, evidently glad to be able to tell the tall man something that pleases him and to get out from under his guns. She hands him a short stack of a dozen small photos.

"This one is Liz, you see, or rather Zabeth." The blonde woman being clothed in the uniform that hangs in the bedroom, Gibbs hardly needs the verbal caption. Her hair is cut in that same helmet fashion he'd seen on the website, and the picture is taken on a large stage, the blue on white banner in the background proclaims 'Greater East Coast Comic Art Convention'.

Evidently the costume contest on that Memorial weekend had continued after the search for Ziva David had moved on to the upper floors of the Hotel. He could have gone another year without seeing this picture, preferring to have no reminders at all of the Hotel Meritz or the aftermath of those days.

The other photos show Elizabeth and Zabeth in different settings and degrees of normalcy. Convenient though it would be to issue a BOLO for a Romulan, Gibbs considers that his team's assessment is correct: they're looking for an undercover Romulan officer posing as a human.

He'll use both faces side-by-side.

xx

After Gibbs has dragged from Ensign Carolyn Stillwell everything he can, he leaves her in the care of Special Agent Marie Watson. He and McGee, however, aren't ready to leave. There are five other apartments on this floor, three to either side of the long hallway and four other floors; _someone _must know something useful. Getting them to admit it, however, is usually the hardest part.

The residents of the first two apartments, on either side of the Stillwells', live up to the city dwellers' credo 'know not thy neighbor'. He doesn't think they're stonewalling him, they probably do know nothing about the sisters they share walls with. The two on the other side, working back from the end of the hall, yield less useful results, one's residents aren't home, the other's aren't talking.

There is only one apartment left, closest to the stairs, and Gibbs tries to hold onto hope.

In answer to his knock, the door is opened by no one. He looks down to the apparently seven-year-old girl holding the knob. "Hello."

"Hello," she greets him with a child's high voice.

"Is your mommy or daddy home?"

"No." She seems to remember that "I'm not supposed to open the door for strangers."

He won't make her nervous by asking why she had. He kneels on his right knee, putting himself at her height but glances up at McGee, who steps back several feet.

"It's all right. My name's Jethro. That's Timothy."

"Jethro's a nice name," she tells him with a smile that illuminates the hallway.

"Thank you."

She apparently remembers her manners, for she looks across the hall at McGee. "Timothy's a nice name too."

"Thanks."

"What's your name?" Gibbs asks.

"Ann Marie Eliza Cynthia Hodges."

Gibbs smiles at the importance invested in this title. "Well, Ann Marie Eliza Cynthia Hodges, will you help us?"

She thinks it over carefully, not releasing the doorknob. "I'll try," she promises solemnly.

"Do you know Elizabeth Stillwell? She lives right across the–" Ann Marie's bright expression answers better than words would. "Have you seen her lately?"

Apprehension clouds the sunlight. "Why?"

x

Gibbs pulls out and shows her his ID and shield. "We're helping her sister Carolyn. Do you know Carolyn?"

"Yes. You're a policeman?"

Close enough. "We're helping Carolyn find her sister. She can't find her and came to us to help her look."

"She sometimes baby-sits for me." She gives the term all the disgust only a young girl could. "But I don't need a baby-sitter. I'm a big girl."

"Yes, you are. When was the last time you saw Elizabeth?"

"The other day."

He'll get more detail in a minute. "What were you doing?"

"Watching 'Nemesis'."

Gibbs glances back to McGee. "Star Trek 10," he supplies. Gibbs restrains himself from shaking his head, more at his failure to anticipate that. "Was it good?" he asks Ann Marie.

"I didn't like it, neither did Miss Stillwell. Data _died_. But Miss Stillwell said they got the Romulans all wrong."

"How'd they do that?"

"Made them look different. They were ugly, but they weren't all Romulans, they were Remans." Gibbs doesn't want to explore the difference, but isn't sure he can avoid it.

"And they were dishon … dishon …"

"Dishonorable?"

Ann Marie nods solemnly. "They were mean. They raped Deanna. Twice."

He can see where that would be unappealing, particularly for whoever this Deanna is, and withholds his opinion of putting it into a movie children would watch. Long ago he'd taken Kelly to see 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?', but he'd gone the day before to clear the movie. "What does Miss Stillwell think of Romulans?"

"She likes them, says they're more honorable. They can be trusted, when you get to know them. When you follow the rules."

"What sort of rules?"

"I'm not sure. Miss Stillwell calls it a – a 'code of honor'. She says she belongs to a Romulan club, says she'll take me some day." She apparently recalls, belatedly, the purpose of the visit, for concern floods her brown eyes. "Is Miss Stillwell all right?"

x

Truthfulness deserves the truth. "We're not sure. Her sister can't find her. We're helping her look. Did she ever mention anything about going anywhere, perhaps somewhere special?"

Ann Marie thinks hard, the effort scrunching her small face. "No."

"Ever mention a friend by the name William or Bill?" He doesn't hold much hope.

"No."

No surprise. The woman isn't likely to discuss the trials and tribulations of her love life with a seven-year-old child.

"Did she ever mention a special place, somewhere she'd go where she wanted to be alone?" This is a longer shot and he's not put out by the failure. But if there's a baby-sitting arrangement, that implies a parent who knows Stillwell well enough to trust her with the child's welfare.

"Where are your mommy and daddy?"

"My daddy's working. Mommy went to the store." Sudden fright fills the girl's eyes and she clutches the knob tighter. "I'm not supposed to open the door for strangers!"

"It's all right, you can go back inside." He pulls his shield case from his jacket, reaches into the space behind his ID and withdraws a business card. "Would you tell your mother we're looking for Miss Stillwell and ask her to call me?"

"I promise," she assures him with supreme solemnity. "Do you think Miss Stillwell's okay?"

"I hope so, Ann Marie."

x

He heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs and isn't surprised to hear a woman's distressed voice from behind. "Ann Marie, what are you _doing_?"

Gibbs rises to his feet, his hand already opening the shield folder as McGee brings out his own.

The introductions are concise; Selene Hodges bites back her initial fright and distrust even as she slips partially into the doorway as though to deny the men entrance. Gibbs senses it's more to prevent them from reaching her daughter. "What do you want?"

"We're looking for a missing woman, one of your neighbors, Elizabeth Stillwell." He glances across the hall.

"And that gives you the right to interrogate my daughter?"

Fright has turned to outraged bravado, but Gibbs is neither interested nor has he the time. "No, I'd prefer to talk to you but you left Ann Marie unattended." He won't follow up on that jab, just moves on. "I understand you're well acquainted with Elizabeth Stillwell. When she disappeared she left vital medication behind. We must get it to her before it's too late."

Stressed words like 'disappeared', 'vital medication' and 'too late' break through the bravado. "Well, I - don't - I saw her ... well, three days ago."

"What was her condition?"

"Well, okay, I guess. I didn't notice anything wrong, that is more so than usual."

"What's usual?"

"Well, there's that dopey haircut she's got, doesn't do a thing for her."

"That's her Romulan haircut," Ann Marie supplies helpfully from beside her, tugging her mother's dress.  
"Yes. Go inside now."

"Mo-om!"

Selene glares down. "_Go_!"

"But _Mo_-om!"

Selene looms over her. "We will discuss this later."

Gibbs is relieved that the child gives in and slinks into the apartment. He admires the girl's spirit, but she will come to recognize some battles are best tempered with discretion. Still, he hopes she doesn't learn the lesson too well.

x

"I'm sorry about that," Selena says when she recovers her poise. "You were saying?"

"You were telling us the last time you saw Elizabeth Stillwell." He doesn't want to direct the conversation, just keep it on track.

"Yes, well, it was the other day, she seemed normal. It was after she dropped Ann Marie off; I had to go shopping after work so she and Elizabeth watched a movie."

This he already has in richer detail. "Did she say anything about going anywhere or doing something?"

"She did say she has a surprise for someone."

"Who?" Selene shrugs eloquently. "If you should think of anything, no matter how trivial it might seem," from the holder he pulls another business card, "please call me."

On the way back to the elevator, McGee wants to know if they're going "Back to Headquarters?"

"Stillwell's Real Estate office."

xxx

Mayflower Management's white on blue sign extends the length of the plate-glass window and glass door, the inevitable posters of available properties limited to a single large corkboard hanging at eye-level, beyond which is a glass enclosed conference room. The effect is one of well-lit welcome, that welcome personified by the cheerful man who greets them with outstretched hand before they're across the threshold.

"Welcome, gentleman. Cristos Paulakis at your service," the man, slightly shorter than they, says expansively, his salt-and-pepper moustache fairly bristling. "I'm sure I have exactly what you're looking for, and if I don't, I know where to get it."

Gibbs hopes this ebullient claim is true, though he expects, as he pulls out his shield case, that Paulakis will be disappointed. "Special Agents Gibbs and McGee, NCIS. We're looking for one of your employees, Elizabeth Stillwell."

Paulakis' sales face switches off, replaced by concerned employer's. "Is anything wrong?"

Gibbs can read in this new countenance concern, a desire to protect an employee and a wonder why Navy Agents come to his door. He'll address each of them in time. "Miss Stillwell's sister reported her missing; we're trying to help find her."

"Her sister's in the Navy?"

'At least he's quick,' Gibbs thinks, limiting his answer to a nod.

"Well, she called out sick yesterday morning."

Gibbs can see Paulakis wants to ask if Stillwell's at home where he'd expected. "She went out without her medication. It's important she take it." Enough truth without over-sharing.

"Of course."

"When you saw her last, how did she appear?"

He shrugs. "Fine."

"Any problems at work?"

Paulakis considers if he should say anything. Gibbs considers him the very type he loves to interrogate, answers written on the face long before they reach the tongue. "She lost a Commission when a buyer pulled out because property improvements we recommended weren't carried out." He glances at the desks, one forward just beyond the enclosed conference room, two in the back. "She and Doug get a salary but it's nothing. The _money _comes from commissions. She was mad about that because the client assured us the work had been done."

x

"Which is Stillwell's desk?"

Paulakis nods to the forward desk, his tone expansive. "Never hurts to put a pretty woman up front."

They approach that desk, the contents of the top not particularly distinctive, suited to a Real Estate Agent rather than a Romulan assassin. Since they don't have a warrant, he can only ask "Do you mind if we check it, try to find some clue as to where she might be?"

Paulakis thinks it over. "If I watch."

Gibbs isn't interested in Real Estate secrets and willing cooperation, when facing a deadline, is better than wasting time getting a warrant, especially if Zabeth is careful about keeping her Tal Shiar operations separate from her cover identity. "McGee."

That's all the order he needs to give as he returns his attention to Paulakis. "Any problems here?" he asks, knowing he'll get an edited version but it'll be interesting is Paulakis knows about the Tal Shiar.

"No, we get along as well as independent contractors can in this economy."

"Independent?"

"Doug and Elizabeth aren't exactly employees; they don't work for me, they just rent desks. In addition to rent, Mayflower gets a percentage of the commission, I in turn pay them a token salary but that's peanuts." He takes one of Stillwell's business cards from a stand, hands it to Gibbs. The card has Stillwell's contact information and license number under the Mayflower logo and her picture in the lower left. The woman's blonde hair is longer and more conventionally styled.

"She doesn't look like this in the picture her sister gave us."

"No," Paulakis doesn't hide a sour look. "That's about a year or so old; now she's got this horrible haircut, looks like she's wearing a helmet. We told her pick a fight with the beautician _after _she's done."

x

Two hundred meters away, on the roof of a four story building, Zabeth watches the action within the office through the plate glass window, her eye to the telescopic sight, the projectile weapon held steady on the building's facade. She's followed the two Starfleet Intelligence Officers from the crypt where she'd stayed in her cover identity to that cover's place of employment.

Starfleet is definitely alerted to her identity, and they may be aware of her mission. One Intelligence Officer sits at her desk, the other stands talking to Paulakis, her cover's human employer. S.I. will find nothing at Mayflower, that post is sterile. Still, she hasn't secured Rolonio and she must have slipped somewhere; Starfleet is alerted and getting too close.

She steadies the weapon. The projectiles it fires will traverse the short distance with superlative accuracy. Though it's less powerful than a disruptor, this weapon is quite adequate.

Zabeth holds her breath and takes careful aim. A final adjustment centers the cross-hairs one centimeter above and forward of the grey haired man's right ear.


	5. Coordinates

Chapter Five  
Coordinates

'No,' Zabeth decides, allowing the weapon's telescopic sight to drift slightly, changing from targeting the grey haired Starfleet Intelligence Officer's head to observing the trio in the storefront office two hundred meters away. The office is the workplace of her cover persona, and if Intelligence Officers are there then Starfleet hunts her now. They may have discerned her mission and may well have the Commodore secure, but if she kills these Intelligence Officers others will follow and they will be motivated to avenge their fellows.

She'll continue to observe. If Starfleet has Rolonio secure, he may be at the Federation's outpost, a duckblind within this primitive world's closest military base. If they don't have him, perhaps they may lead her to him.

At any rate, she has one confirmed location and time where she will intercept and eliminate him.

She will bide her time.

xxx

Abby's lab is a cacophony of noise when Gibbs walks in and goes directly to the radio, but Abby beats him to it with impressive speed and blocks the white instrument. With a smirk, she draws her white lab coat open. Gibbs, quite surprised by this wordless move, reads the message emblazoned upon her tee shirt.

'For better music,' the white letters stretched across her impressive chest proclaim, 'turn _these _knobs.'

He falls back a step and her smirk widens. Reveling in her victory, she turns, lowers the volume and faces him, the triumphant smirk morphing into a saucy smile. "So, Gibbs, what can I do with you?"

Safest to focus on work when she's in one of her outrageous moods. She occasionally gets it into her head to tease him, knowing she's absolutely safe from his falling for it. She hadn't always been safe from his thought to give her a 'wake-up' in a place he doesn't use on his team, but as long as he never does give in to the temptation she'll continue her game.

"I need to know what this says." He hands her the evidence bag containing the pad retrieved from Elizabeth Stillwell's bedroom. Though the top sheet is blank, he hopes Abby can discern what had been written on the previous one.

"Invisible messages," she takes the bag from him, leads him to her worktable, "I love them. Do you know that in High School my boyfriends and I used to write each other the porniest messages in lemon juice? You could only read them by getting hot."

"Too much information, Abs." He'd decided it was too much when she'd used the plural to describe her amorous adventures.

"Come _on_, Gibbs," she urges as she crosses the room, opens a cabinet and withdraws a perforated metal tray set atop a low machine that has several small fans visible on each side, "didn't you ever write your innermost desires to a girl?" She brings the tray back, sets it down and plugs in the unit.

"Never put anything in writing."

"That one of your more famous rules?"

"Should be McGee's." He hopes to deflect this outrageous conversation.

Abby signs the Evidence Chain Log at the top of the bag and, using latex gloves, breaks the seal and withdraws the pad. She tears the top sheet off, sets it on the silver tray and covers it with a clear sheet of Mylar.

"Gibbs, I'll bet McGee's got notes addressed to Siobhan on his computer that'd curl your hair." She glances at his head. "Well, maybe curve it a bit."

x

She turns on the perforated tray and a vacuum pulls the Mylar tight against the sheet. "Now Tony, he should never write down _anything_. Some of his email could probably get him ten years." She crosses the room again, gets a ten inch long silver magnetic wand and a container from the same cabinet and returns to the table. Before reaching it, however, she slows to a stop. She looks for a long moment at the rod, then up at him and gives him a very slow smile.

"_Abby_."

"Just a thought." Her eyes lose none of their devilish glint as she plugs in and passes the wand slowly over the paper, charging it with static electricity.

Next she opens the small container and sprinkles metallic black powder onto the paper, covering the whole surface. She places a large sheet of white paper onto the table and carefully tilts the tray, letting the powder slide off.

"_Whoa_..."

Gibbs has to agree. The wand has magnetized the entire paper but the indentions are more affected. The words that adhere to the paper might as well be written in ink.

'Execute Commodore Rolonio at coordinates 875-020-709, Stardate 27548.845.'

xxx

"We have where and when Stillwell's going to take out Rolonio," Gibbs announces as he strides into the bullpen.

"All _right_!" DiNozzo exclaims, seeing an easy end to this Trekkian nut case. "We blanket the area, pick her up when she arrives -_ problemo endo_."

Gibbs pulls out his camera, extracts and tosses the memory card to the exultant man, who puts in into his computer with a flourish and sends the single image to the plasma screen. The four agents can almost hear his face fall to the floor.

"McGee," Gibbs calls, "what the hell does this mean?"

The man's face is a disturbing mixture of blank and distressed, never an expression Gibbs likes. "I - I don't know."

Gibbs stalks to his desk, glances at Michelle. "Get Ducky and your husband up here, I'm sick of working blind." He makes the last a general warning as he sits down and restrains the urge to slam something. "Palmer, did you find Rolonio?"

She places her hand over the receiver. "Sorry, sir, no." She uncovers the unit. "Honey, both of you up here fast, before you have to autopsy all four of us." She hangs up, quickly resumes her report before her prediction comes true. "He works alone in his florist shop, no answer on his phone, no hits on his credit card. I asked Special Agent Lamb's team to go out there again in case he came back or anyone saw him, I'm waiting on word."

"You assigned another team to field our case?"

Her eyes take on that fearful look he'd been familiar with in the past, and had hoped he wouldn't see again. "I'm sorry, sir. I was assigned to research, they were in the field on their own case but not too far and ..." she swallows hard. "Yes, I did."

"Good thinking."

He turns to Ziva, purposely not noticing Palmer's gratified smile.

x

"I have obtained a list of the heads of the seven groups Rolonio supervises in Maryland," Ziva reports, handing over a paper. "They call them 'Captains', they are more like Club Presidents."

"Did you reach all of them?"

"I managed to reach two of them thus far, Patricia Holmes of the 'SS Columbia' and Michael Edson of the 'SS Saratoga'. Holmes is at work but her family provided me with the address and phone. I am waiting to hear back from Edson."

"No, you're not."

She reaches for her telephone. "No, I am not."

x

"What do those numbers mean?" Gibbs presses generally, pointing to the image of the note that still shines on the plasma screen. He's annoyed he's had to ask the question a second time.

"They look like coordinates," McGee says over the ring of the elevator bell down the corridor.

"Ya _think_?" Gibbs doesn't cross the room to jump-start the man's brain this time, but he's certain he will. Not only could he have gotten that from the context of the note but the word 'coordinates' is in it. "But to what? They're not longitude and latitude, what else is there?"

"I - they - I –"

"_Spit it out, McGee_."

"They look familiar. I can almost place–"

"They're to the Gideon Council Chamber," Jimmy Palmer announces. All eyes turn to where he's standing next to Ducky in the bullpen entrance.

"Of course!" Tim exclaims.

"_What _is the Gideon Council Chamber?"

McGee is certain of two things, he has the answer and he hates being upstaged. It's bad enough when Tony does it but he'll be damned…. "In the classic episode 'The Mark of Gideon', during a diplomatic mission to finalize the planet Gideon's acceptance into the Federation, Captain Kirk is transported onto an exact replica of the Enterprise."

"It's a plot," Jimmy swipes the narrative when McGee draws a breath, "to obtain a strain of a deadly virus so an overcrowded planet can reduce its population through disease–"

"The plan," McGee snatches the exposition back, annoyed at the interruption, "involves Kirk meeting the daughter of the planetary ambassador and her trying to convince him to stay–"

"So the Gideons give the Enterprise," Jimmy cuts in, "two sets of nearly identical beam-down coordinates, only two digits transposed–"

"One to the Enterprise mockup where they trap Kirk–"

"And this one to the actual Council Chamber!" Jimmy concludes triumphantly.

As the two men contrast looks of annoyance and satisfaction, Gibbs notices the expression on Michelle's face, one of almost hero-worship as she beams with pride at her husband the investigator. "You looking to take a stint in Autopsy?"

She favors him with a sweet smile. "Jimmy's the only one who examines my naked body."

Tony DiNozzo winces, virtually convulses with his desire to retort, but he must swallow the jibe back.

It hurts going down.

x

Gibbs is less pleased than ever. A link to a forty-plus year old television show he hadn't glanced at since he'd had free time with his daughter Kelly has now introduced kidnapping, political intrigue and _germ warfare _into the mix.

And though, in the old days, germ warfare involved laboratories and military or government operations, now all it potentially needs is a syringe of HIV-infected blood.


	6. and Stardates

Chapter Six  
and Stardates

Gibbs is aggravated. This is the second time - the first was when Mikel Mawher stalked Abby - that a 40-plus year old television show has arisen as an unwelcome element in a case. This time it could mean anything from kidnapping to biological assault. Up until now it had only meant murder. "What else?" he demands of his team and, by extension, Ducky and Jimmy.

"What do you mean, boss?" DiNozzo, senior within the team, must bite the bullet.

Gibbs looks about at the faces surrounding him, wondering if this is finally going to be the day he serial head-smacks almost everybody in the room. "Elizabeth Stillwell is not going to kidnap William Rolonio from his flower shop and _beam him into a replica of the Enterprise_. What else does that clue mean? What happens on that damned show that'll give us a clue to her plans?"

At their blank expressions he wonders if he should order McGee to download the film. Does he want to take any one of his agents away from duty for almost 45 minutes to watch a film in the hope of gleaning–?

"If I may offer an observation?" Ducky says with uncharacteristic diffidence.

"Anything." Mallard's observations, though frequently verbose, always make sense - something that will be very refreshing now.

"Miss Stillwell's creation of a Romulan alter-ego, the Tal Shiar operative Zabeth, very likely became a defense mechanism. Zabeth need feel nothing, she has no emotions. Therefore–"

"I'm sorry, Doctor, you're wrong," Jimmy tells his mentor, earning a look of utter astonishment.

"Indeed?" Ducky has been wrong in his life, many times, but he's never had his assistant – _any _assistant – have the temerity to call him on it, particularly in public. Even Sammy Sky, who often spoke her mind in blissful disregard for setting, had never dared. He looks forward to hearing the root of this gaff – and if he hasn't been wrong, he hopes the young man can move quickly.

x

"Romulans are offshoots of Vulcans," Palmer explains.

"Yes, I had heard that," Ducky replies dryly. That's why he'd made the point that they too have no emotions.

"What I mean is Vulcans - and Romulans - do have emotions, the same as ours. In fact, the reason they repress them is that they're so powerful - more intense than human."

"You don't say," Gibbs interjects. This reverses several of his conclusions. If it's useful, he's willing to let Palmer run with it.

"I do say. The Romulans left Vulcan before Surak's principles of non-violence and the suppression of emotion took hold. But genetically it's as possible for them to have the discipline the Vulcans have as they … have. The Romulans expressed it in a repressive, regimented culture but their brains, their mental discipline, still allowed them to adapt to that repression of emotion the way the Vulcans did. The Vulcans carried it much further; they suppressed emotion in everything in their lives, but the Romulans have the same ability of discipline."

At the end of this, he realizes everyone is staring at him and tries to fight off a bout of nervous stammering. He suspects only 'Chelle recognizes the reason for his pressed lips.

"Indeed," Ducky says, fascinated by this faintly convoluted though long - for Palmer - and quite erudite - for Palmer - explanation and already reworking his theory to conform to this new vision.

"It's what you said earlier today," Jimmy reminds him, having overcome the nervousness that would have undone him, at least enough to feel confident with a single declaration, "that you spend more time with Masterpiece Theater than Star Trek."

"It is a good thing then that we have the benefit of a Trekkie to advise us."

"Trekker," Michelle, seated at her desk, corrects with a smile. "Trekkie is archaic, and kind of offensive."

"I do apologize," he says, offering a slight bow to the woman. Michelle, however, is beaming with pride at her husband.

x

"What does all this mean to us?" Gibbs keeps it only a notch below a demand.

"It means," Ducky explains, now confident due to the insight his protégé has offered and continuing as though he'd never had to alter his theory, "that 'Zabeth' is helping Elizabeth to repress the pain of her loss. The more deeply Elizabeth is hurt, the more tightly she will cling to Zabeth's discipline. We shall not get through to Elizabeth as long as Zabeth remains her shield."

"What do you suggest?"

"Put Zabeth and Mister - or Commodore - Rolonio together."

"That's what we're trying to avoid. She wants to kill him."

"In a controlled environment. Under our control."

"We still have to find her first."

"Could she–?" DiNozzo begins, shuts himself up immediately.

"What?" Gibbs demands.

"No. It's ridiculous."

"This entire investigation is ridiculous!"

"No argument from me, boss. The Enterprise - the real Enterprise - is in Norfolk. Carolyn Stillwell has orders to report tomorrow. Elizabeth could pass for her if she puts her hair up and you look fast enough. Could Elizabeth be planning to steal her sister's uniform," his tone conveys how much he hates even saying it, "march him onto the Enterprise and execute him there…?"

"You're right, DiNozzo."

"I _am_?"

"It's ridiculous."

"Well, I could've–"

"She's going to kill him in the Gideon Council Chamber - wherever the hell _that _is. McGee!"

"Er, yes boss?"

"If we can't find where, what about when?" He turns back to the plasma screen bearing the image of the enhanced note. "When the hell is 'Stardate 27548.845'?"

"I don't kn–" He bites it off at Gibbs' glare. "Stardates in the original series didn't mean anything. It was four digits and a decimal. They used random numbers because no one ever thought it would matter. In the later shows they used five digits plus a decimal and the second digit referred to the season."

"So it's gibberish?"

"_Maybe_. Before 2000, fans used to fiddle with the calendar. September 6, 1987 would be understood to be 8709.06. After the end of 1999, it got unstandardized. Destandardized?"

"A little after 2030," Jimmy cuts in.

Gibbs turns on him. "_What_?"

x

Jimmy is flustered at the demand, but an encouraging look from Michelle strengthens him. "The system used in 'Next Generation' and everything since gave the decimal more significance. It worked because they broke up the day into ten 2.4 hour periods. Point 845 could refer to around half-past eight."

Gibbs comes nose to nose with him. "You're _sure_?"

"_No _one is sure. There's no authoritative–"

"_We have to know_!"

"I'm doing the best I–"

"If I'm going to commit resources thinking whatever is going to happen will happen at eight thirty–"

"That's the best I can–"

"I have to be sure!"

"We're guessing a psycho's fantasies–"

"If you can't give accurate assessments, what _good _are yo–?"

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!"

Everyone turns to Michelle who's on her feet, gasping. No one can say who's more astonished.

x

It's nearly fifteen seconds before Gibbs voice, penetrating in its enforced calm, concludes: "McGee, keep trying to translate that computer stuff. Does it mean anything? Ziva, that diary. DiNozzo, you're with me."

"On your six, boss," he says equally quietly.

"Come alone, Mr. Palmer." Ducky leads Jimmy out of Ground Zero.

Gibbs and DiNozzo start to leave.

"Sir?" Michelle calls. Gibbs turns. She hasn't moved. Her voice is tiny, her eyes filled with the old fear. "I'm sorry, Age - Special Agent Gibbs, sir. What - should I do?"

He considers. That message implying Gideon has to mean something. Some part of Zabeth's plan must be there ... somewhere. "Watch Star Trek."

xxx

Though Gibbs' training of the next generation of agents involves the ceaseless drive to obtain answers now rather than five minutes from now, shoving past all obstacles, investigative work is still hours of painstaking research and the asking of a myriad of questions, sometimes so often a tape player seems a desireable part of standard equipment. Cases are not just solved in the field, they're also solved in labs and at computers and on phones.

Thus, while Gibbs and DiNozzo tackle the street, McGee, David and Palmer painstakingly track leads among minutia, figuratively laboring to separate dross from gold. And since the human mind cannot focus indefinitely upon any one thought and remain efficient, there is conversation.

No one has ever implied that Tim McGee has to like it.

x

"Tracking William Rolonio, if he is still alive," Ziva gripes deep into the second hour, "is becoming hopeless. The man has dropped off the face of the Earth. No phone calls, no contact with his _GPS enabled_ cell phone, no emails ... I can find no trace of him anywhere."

"We should probably be looking for a shallow grave somewhere," McGee says bitingly.

"That is pessimistic." She ignores the fact she'd been as pessimistic.

Tim shakes his head sharply, as if to throw off her point. "We have to face the fact that not everything can be solved in a nick of time."

Ziva is surprised by his caustic tone. "Why do you think we cannot?"

"So, Tim," Michelle says quickly in an effort to distract the pair from an obviously brewing argument. The on-line film long ago ran its course and she wants to let it percolate in her sub-conscious, and will also do anything to drown the memory of her earlier humiliating gaff. "What are you going to do on your honeymoon?" Her salacious tone clearly says she's not talking about sightseeing through the Irish countryside.

He's surprised by this segue. "What did you do on _yours_?" Tim uses the sharpness to drive home the point that the answer is pretty obvious - and none of her business.

"None of your business," she counters with a smile.

But it doesn't seem to affect his mood.

x

'If Zabeth is Romulan', McGee thinks, trying to focus on the on-screen Romulan glossary, 'then she probably speaks it, maybe even thinks it.' He's trying learn it, and hopes he's made his point to silence the women.

"It's two days away," Michelle continues, an odd tone creeping into her words, "you should be feeling pretty good."

"Yeah, I am," he admits, the thought of his lovely and loving fiancé more appealing than the Romulan faux dictionary, so he takes a few moments to focus on that.

"Then why aren't you?"

x

He turns to her now, surprised and now completely derailed. "What?"

She leans closer in her chair, says intensely, "I've noticed, for the past week, ever since your bachelor party, that you've been pretty tense."

None of her _business_. "I'm getting married. It's a big step." That's so common a cliché as to be meaningless, just as he wants it. He knows what she means – he hasn't been able to help it – and doesn't want her to go there.

"I have noticed, however," Ziva interjects from across the bullpen, "that since you have passed the hundred hour mark, your tension level has nailed."

He's halted, even in his mounting annoyance, and has to think that one over. "Spiked?"

"Yes, spiked, thank you."

"I am not spiked." He is, however, feeling ganged up on.

"Yes you are."

He's even more aggravated at being contradicted. "We're trying to track down an innocent woman before she murders an innocent man and all I'm praying is that we can stop her without having to shoot her."

"No," Michelle interjects from his right, "you were tense before Stillwell ever came. Yesterday afternoon you nearly bit Special Agent DiNozzo's head off just because he–"

"You know what, this is ridiculous," he snaps, looking from one woman to the other. "I am _not _tense. I love Siobhan with all my heart and I'm marrying her the day after tomorrow and we're finally going to get our 'happily ever after' so just _drop _it."

"I notice she's Siobhan," Michelle says.

He turns full on her. "_What_?"

"You called her 'Siobhan'. You only ever call her 'Shav'."

"Well, _excuse me_, 'Shav' is my _private _name for her. I shouldn't even be using it in the office."

"But you do. And in the past few days she's 'Siobhan' more often than 'Shav', by almost three to–"

"_Enough _with the interrogation! You have your assignment, _Probette_." He sees the sting of DiNozzo's jibe in her eyes. He'd meant it to sting.

But guilt, as she turns back to her monitor, makes him want to pull the word back. Of any two, they've always sided with one another, have always been the closest and she hadn't deserved that bite. "Michelle…."

"You cannot deny," now Ziva outflanks him, "that in the past few days your level of anxiety has had you snap–"

He turns on her but Michelle cuts in before Ziva's words can spark another bite. "Tim, we care."

He holds up his hands to block the women. "Listen ... ladies ... there is - no - tension. Maybe there _is _pre-wedding jitters but I'm fine. We're fine. So get your best dresses pressed, okay? Now, if you'll excuse me..."

x

He gets up, leaves the bullpen and starts down the corridor. "You can say nothing is wrong," he turns at Ziva's voice and finds the women trailing him, "but there is."

"No there _isn't_," he says tightly. He recalls a point the late Kate Todd had conveyed to him from Gibbs in a story about one of her earliest cases with NCIS, that involving the equally late Paula Cassidy. "'Why do women always try to fix what isn't broken'?"

"McGee," Ziva's faster with the answer, "we are not trying to–"

"Zee, just _drop_ it, okay?" He's five feet from the men's room door and considers it a reasonable sanctuary - at least from one of them. Michelle would never invade this sanctuary and even if Ziva disobeys Gibbs' orders again, at least he'll only have to deal with one of them.

He stalks to the door and shoves it out of his way.


	7. Tell Me the Truth

Chapter Seven  
Tell Me the Truth

McGee, having sought relief from his pursuers in the men's room, as well as a chance to shove down anger and frustration enough to deal with his overly solicitous partners, goes immediately to a stall and hears the door reopen behind him. Hand on his zipper, he doesn't pull it down, but neither does he turn around. "Zee, you are getting really _aggravating _with this. Can't even Gibbs get through to you? What part of '_men's _room' don't you get?"

"I'm not sure," the woman's voice says. It's not the voice he expected. "This is my first time." He turns, remembering in time to move his hands. Michelle Palmer is standing by the door. "I guess that makes me a virgin at men's room etiquette?"

"_Michelle_, what are you doing here? It's bad enough we can't block Zee out, we don't need you learning bad lessons."

"I'm sorry, Tim. I'm really concerned about you."

"Yes, you made that quite clear - _outside_."

"I'm sorry. It's just that... Well, your wedding is two days away and the closer you get, the more distracted you get."

"That's only natural," he reminds her, trying to evade, but she won't let him.

"And more pensive, like you don't want to go through with it."

"That's not true!"

x

Since he'd made the decision to propose, spur of the moment though it had been after the New Year's party, he'd considered the past fifteen years to have been far too long.

"Then what's wrong?" He supposes she can read him too well. The hardest thing to do is to evade a trained inquisitor. "I can help."

"There's nothing wrong."

"Come on, Tim, the truth." He doesn't answer, though he does abandon the stall. "Come on, Tim," she appeals, stepping close, "I'm standing in a men's room and if anyone walks in I'll never live it down. Talk to me."

"There's nothing to tell."

x

Michelle sighs and reaches for the thin gold chain he can see past her open collar. She draws out from under her blouse an inch long set of four horizontal gems laid in strata; blue, green, black and purple separated by settings of silver. "I didn't want to do this but remember, you _made _me."

He knows she occasionally wears significant charms, but has rarely known her to openly wear anything other than the encircled five pointed star surrounding a cross. Jimmy had had that unique jewel, which commemorates her dual faiths, made for her to celebrate their engagement.

Michelle and he actually have fewer secrets from one another than any two of the team, until now. The witch is obviously determined to maintain that record.

x

"What is that?"

"Sodalite, tourmaline, obsidian and amethyst," she explains, letting the gems dangle from her hand, sparkling in the florescent lights. "Tell me the truth. What's bothering you?"

He looks down into her penetrating, deep brown eyes and says determinedly: "Nothing." But he can't make himself keep her eyes, and against his best effort they slide from hers. She grips the gems firmly for a moment in her right hand.

"I'm not Abby," he tells her. "She may believe, though I've never understood why a scientist like her does but she believes." He refuses to remember Michelle's seemingly preternatural awareness at the winter cave when they'd searched for the missing child and again when they'd gone to interview Zang, and what she'd done to save Jimmy when he'd been shot in that lab still gives him chills but "I know that you believe in all this but I still won't – don't."

"Doesn't matter." She sighs, pulls the chain up over her head and reaches up for his head with the talisman. He tries to talk a step back. The stall _would _be behind him. "You'll tell me the truth whether you believe or not."

"I'm not Abby," he tries again, confidence faltering. Though she's discreet about separating the Wiccan and professional aspects of her life, he's seen her do things, things he can't always explain away. There are some perceptions - some things about her that he won't try to explain, won't even allow himself to think about.

She reaches up, presses the gems to his left temple and, her upraised eyes locked upon his, she says intently "_Tell _me the _truth_."

Does he feel ... something ... tingle through his body? He twists out of the confined space but turns to face her. "All right! I don't believe in this stuff but you want the truth - here it is: I'm scared. _Happy_?"

She returns the amulet about her neck, lets it hang before her breasts. "No, Tim, I'm not happy. Why are you scared?" He won't answer. "Of what?"

x

"Well, scared isn't the right word. I'm just, well, I'm..."

"Having second thoughts?"

"No. Not ... exactly. It's just, I'm, well, I'm ... There are... The closer we come..."

"Tim, you're talking to the woman who ran out on my own wedding and left Jimmy standing at the altar, then cried all through my second chance. I know what it's like." She gives him the time to find his words; they come at the end of an explosive sigh.

"Siobhan has spent the past eight years living in a fishbowl, constantly in sight, constantly under observation. A priest has to be so careful how he lives his life, a woman priest has to be ten times as careful."

"I remember Abby saying that, while you were hunting Ed Samson."

"That's an extreme time, I'm talking about in general. And I'm starting to realize... I'm having... You know, I was always, well, I went to Mass - when we weren't working, but it wasn't... You know, I've always... I'm a practicing Episcopalian, but she's a _professional _one. She has to be. You know, before the Lasik treatments, though she's still wearing the glasses she doesn't need to, she sees fine and won't tell anyone, I don't know why... But she was scared her eyes would get worse, legally blind to really blind. She's memorized the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, a half dozen other books cover to cover for when she did go blind... I kind of know the Bible... Some. I can follow..." He turns, looking at the walls for answers, for inspiration, can't find any. He turns back to the silent woman.

"You know, I've been going... Saint Mary's isn't even my parish, but I've been... Well, two weeks ago I'm there and I notice people are looking at me; this is after Father Donaldson started talking about... started announcing the Banns, you know?"

"Yes Tim, I know."

"Well, the second week I'm noticing people are looking at me when they think I'm not noticing, you know? And I can read them; 'who is this guy who's waltzing in and marrying our priest?' Well, anyway, this one couple and I are talking, I know they're feeling me out, and one of them asks 'Mister McGee' - they don't know I'm an NCIS Agent, I don't ever talk about it – only the ones who know know, you know?" She grins. "Anyway, I'm asked 'Mister McGee, are you planning on running for the Vestry?', the parish council, you know? Well, while they're reading me I'm reading them, only probably better and its microcosmic, a microcosm of the whole group. I'm reading from one 'are you planning on running for the Vestry?' and from the other 'please don't be running for the Vestry'."

"Are you?"

"I can't, I'm not a member of the parish. People have asked me if I'm going to become a Lector - apparently they think I have a good voice. They ask if I'm going to join the Brotherhood of Saint Andrew…."

She grins. "I can see you becoming 'Brother Timothy'."

"Yeah." That'll be a cold day.

"What does Siobhan say to that?"

"She doesn't even want me to join the Parish, at least not officially. She and I have discussed it. I'm not joining the Parish, not running for anything, not becoming anything."

"Why?" This is the opposite of what she'd expected.

"Not for at least a year. She doesn't want people watching both of us, fishbowling _both _of us. She's had eight years of it, two here, six in several other Parishes when she was a Supply Priest – that's what they call a one or more time fill-in, Saint Mary was her first real _posting_. She's never liked it, the scrutiny, but you tolerate it because you know you just have no choice, but she doesn't want our marriage... I'll be there, but our private lives... She wants our private lives private, our married lives doubly so. We know it's next to impossible, we just don't want it to be completely impossible. That's why if anyone wants to even know why I'm not at the Church on a Sunday morning, I'm at my own, or at 'work', but she won't mention where if it's someone who doesn't already know. That also allows me to keep from having to talk about NCIS if not very many people know I'm an agent."

She remembers he doesn't like people knowing, doesn't talk about it, but it seems like too much trouble for her. Whatever he likes, though. "Sounds like a tightrope."

"You don't know the half."

That she believes. "But that's not what's bothering you."

x

It takes a long moment for him to say it. "No."

"What?"

"Well, you know, I'm a practicing..."

"And she's a professional."

"What if I don't measure up?" She makes her silence mask her surprise and gradually draw him out. "I've tried to be... I go. Every Sunday, when I'm not working. I don't miss the big ones, but if you held a gun to my head I couldn't tell Deuteronomy from Isaiah."

"Have you talked to Siobhan about this?"

"No."

"I think you should. I think if you did, you'll probably find she doesn't care. That that's not what she's looking for in you."

His mind flashes back to that afternoon on the garden bench, when she'd asked him to be her secular lifeline. He's tried. He's not sure how well he's ever succeeded.

x

"Tim, that's not all that's bothering you, is it?" All he's said so far justifies nervous, maybe anxious - he'd said 'scared'.

"Yes." She fingers the necklace before her, and for a long time the war wages in him. He can't say it, can't bring himself to admit it to anyone, but he can't help himself. Her and her damned amulet! "No."

"What else?"

He shakes his head, a last gesture of resistance that doesn't get past her. Finally; "Can you keep a secret? I mean a _real _secret?"

She smiles. "I'm a witch. I'm always keeping secrets."

He takes a deep breath, holds it, and finally lets the words out. "Shav and I ... Well, the last time we ... that is, the last time we ..."

"Did it?"

"Did it," he admits. "I was ... Well, we haven't – I mean she's a priest - it took me so very long to get over _that_. I couldn't dare to think of her romantically, I could barely allow myself to think of her as a _woman_. Then I proposed and I was all set to wait until we were - legal, you know? Then she was attacked - spent these two and a half months recovering. I haven't touched her. I mean I haven't touched her like _that_."

Michelle doesn't interrupt to answer.

"The last time we ... did it... the _very_ last time we did it..." He turns away, steps away, then musters the determination to turn. "Well, I was 18 and she was 17 - though I _thought _she was 18," he finishes quickly.

Still she doesn't interrupt, lets silence draw him out.

"I'm ... I'm ..." he steps away, and then turns back. The room is too small. "I'm not 18 anymore."

x

Michelle had suspected this was the cause of his more secret discomfort. The rest of it she'd read, or anticipated. She's married, after all. These past few months had been enlightening, but he'd hidden this under too many layers. Now that it's uncovered, his plight is obvious to her. "You're afraid you won't be able to satisfy her." She hadn't even thought the word 'perform'.

"I _know _it's just been me, no other romance – she said that because of the fishbowl she hadn't ever looked, pushed back the desire for …. Until I came back but Ziva was..." When he'd dated Ziva, Shav had kept her distance, locked her feelings away in a box and buried her physical feelings under that box.

"She's been celibate since High School, but I'm not afraid of competing with other men..."

"You're scared of competing with your own ghost."

He smiles ruefully. He hadn't ever intended to speak of this, but now that it's out he really wants an answer, or at least a clue. "That's one way of putting it. What if I can't live up to her memories?"

x

Michelle remains silent for a long moment, trying to decide how best to express it. She steps closer until they're just inches apart. "Tim, it's not a secret, she never swore anyone to anything, so I can repeat this. At her bridal party– You know how those can get?"

If it's anything like his bachelor party, he has a pretty good idea.

"She tol– Well, something about you kind of slipped out."

He's not sure how he feels about that. "What?"

"Each and every time you kiss her …" she looks upward significantly, gives him a telling smile, "each and every time - she _gasms_."

His eyebrows leap up. "Really? Every time?"

"Ev-ver-ry time. Oh, not the shake-the-screws-out-of-the-bed-frame O-Gs, but those deep down, really private ones that make a woman feel ... so _good_."

"_Really_?"

Michelle steps closer, drops her voice, looks up into his eyes, her voice low and private. "Trust me, Tim; she's thinking that when you two get to Ireland and to that hotel, after fifteen years and now holding back these couple of months, the first time you touch her you're going to have a Supernova on your hands."

"Really?"

"After that, you're not going to have to compete against anything."

x

"Michelle ... thank you." She just smiles, turns to leave. "But one thing..."

She turns back, anticipating his point. "Yes?"

"Well, I don't know how to say this but ..." It might be so incredibly useful in interrogations - if they could survive a furious Gibbs, but this was between colleagues - friends - and: "a truth spell isn't exactly fair."

She giggles. "There's no such thing as a truth spell." She enjoys the way his face falls. "Free will and all."

"But..." he indicates the amulet hanging before her.

She picks it up, holds it in her hand. "This combination is for weight loss."

He looks her down and up. "You don't need to lose weight."

She steps to him and, hands pressed to his chest, she comes up on her toes and kisses his cheek. "You're gonna be a wonderful husband."

xxx

Zabeth considers her options. Starfleet Intelligence is tracking her, there are two Intelligence Agents on her trail and she is no closer to Commodore Rolonio.

Looking over the weapons in her Sanctuary, she chooses the smaller, more easily concealed and mobile weaponry.

The possibility exists that she will not be able to eliminate the target before the specified time and at the designated location. Assuming Starfleet Intelligence is aware of that, it is probable they may set a trap for her.

She must outmaneuver these humans, do something they will not expect.

And when she has eliminated Rolonio, she will have to kill the Intelligence Agents as well before she can return to her ship.

The weapon she chooses has spare charges, it's small enough to carry easily and eminently capable of destroying Rolonio and everyone who would prevent her escape.


	8. Meet the Captains

Chapter Eight  
Meet the Captains

Gibbs, together with DiNozzo, is less than halfway to their destination and deeply frustrated at being trapped in heavy and slow moving traffic that covers this entire portion of the City of Politics when his cell phone rings. "Yeah, Gibbs."

/Boss,/ McGee's voice comes through the unit, /I found something in the link I established with Elizabeth Stillwell's work computer./ When he and Gibbs had visited Mayflower Management, McGee had had a few minutes to work on their target's desktop computer while Gibbs had kept Cristos Paulakis' attention elsewhere.

"What've you got?"

/Since Elizabeth became Zabeth, I wondered what happened to those other letters. Stillwell is responsible for managing several properties. One of them has a Studio apartment leased to an Eli Barns. Barns is her mother's maiden name./

"Check it out."

Gibbs puts the phone away, relaying the pertinent information to DiNozzo. They'd left Headquarters too long ago, congested traffic slowing the senior agent from his customary headlong pace. The President is meeting today with the Russian President and officials never have mastered the art of keeping traffic moving in the face of heightened security. Helos are the way, an idea that no one seems able to implement without tying up traffic anyway. Though their destination is directly across town Gibbs remonstrates himself for not having gone the long way around the city. Next time he will keep abreast of White House activities; McGee and the others will probably reach their destination before he reaches his.

At least DiNozzo has sense enough to remember Miranda's first Right.

xxx

McGee, David and Palmer pull up before a twelve story, seventy family unit very conveniently located a block from the Stillwell's apartment. It is obvious that this, together with the fact that Elizabeth Stillwell, whether in her own persona or Zabeth's, can manipulate the records of this property that led her to choose it.

The one room studio the agents seek is at the far end of a hall on the seventh floor and the door's lock succumbs quickly to Ziva's lock picking skills.

McGee, as senior agent, directs their tactics. Unable to assume their quarry is not inside, they'll go in quietly, quickly, ready to cover and subdue Stillwell if she's inside. Guns out, they'll move in in a rapid bishop-queen-bishop movement that will cover the room immediately. Quietly turning the knob of the unlocked door, he counts off three seconds and shoves the door, going straight in while the women cut wide to each side.

Four rapid steps and the agents cover an unoccupied room. The door to their left is open, displaying an equally vacant bathroom. They have no human - or Romulan - target.

That's not to imply the trip has been wasted.

"Wow," is all McGee can think of to say, looking upon a Trek armorer's dream.

x

If the house belonging to John Carson, filled as it was with a vast collection of fantasy collectable weapons that covered every wall of every room, was distressing, this one is no less so even for its specialized focus.

While there are an impressive number of Federation and Klingon weapons spanning more than a century's worth of development, the main emphasis is on Romulan designs, from 40 year old hand disruptors to those used in the most recent theatrical movie, 'Nemesis'.

"An impressive collection," Ziva grants, closing and relocking the door. Her tone indicates she's less impressed with the effort amassing a staggering variety of non-functioning weapons.

"She must have been collecting these for decades," Tim says, walking along the walls. The collection in Stillwell's official residence was impressive enough, this even more so despite its deadly intent.

"Waste of money; she is supposedly an operative and yet these will operate only in her own mind."

"I wouldn't be too sure," Michelle counters, pointing to a Klingon D'k tahg, a three bladed dagger, the middle blade flaring to over two inches wide, the others designed to snap out from the hilt at the touch of a disguised switch. "I wouldn't want to get stabbed by this."

"All right, I will grant you the bladed weapons are dangerous but–" She halts, scrutinizing a particular gun. "I give it back. Tim?"

He's not inclined to correct her; the change in her tone is enough to snatch his attention. He and Michelle converge with Ziva in front of a Romulan 1960's disruptor. "What is it?" Rather than answering directly, she points to what ought to be the ray emitter of the weapon. "Are those what I think they are?" he asks, hoping to be wrong.

"Oh, yes," she says with a smile; now she's impressed. "Electrodes. It is a taser."

McGee removes the weapon from the wall and inspects it closely, his hand well clear of the trigger. Tasers come in all ranges of power, and judging by the weight alone this one's battery could be enough to deliver a massive jolt.

He looks around the room at the weapons that surround them, this time with a new respect.

xxx

Failing to locate William Rolonio through normal methods, Gibbs and DiNozzo track his friends in hopes that one of them have seen him or can point in the right direction.

Today, reluctant though he is, Gibbs must go to other fen, in this case the Captains of the other 'ships', the seven clubs comprising the Maryland fleet under 'Commodore' Rolonio. The closest one, itself an aggravating distinction considering the loss of time in Washington bottleneck traffic, is the SS Columbia, a group of over thirty young men and women, none of whom Gibbs believes he'd want aboard a real ship. This one is helmed by Patricia Holmes who, in real life, is Office Manager in the Accounting department of Arrow Inc.

They are guided to their target's office by the department Receptionist, Peggy Modaff, a rather comely young woman DiNozzo evidently doesn't mind following. Passing through the collection of cubicles that fill the entirety of the sixth floor of an otherwise unremarkable office building on H Street NW, Gibbs is more attentive to the questions he intends to put to this captain and less to DiNozzo or the Receptionist.

He half hopes the man will step out of line, to give him an excuse to work off some frustration in a series of scathing reprimands when they're alone again. For now, he holds his patience as they're led to the open door of the corner office.

"Ms. Holmes, these are the gentlemen you were expecting," Modaff reports as though she hadn't announced the agents from her desk less than a minute before.

When Gibbs steps into the office he's surprised, not by the stately office itself but by the woman who commands it. Far from the pimply Yuppie he'd expected, the woman is on the high side of fifty. In the moment it takes him to enter the room, he's already pushed down his surprise, sized her up and reads in her eyes that she's done the same in turn. "You're _Patricia_ Holmes?" He's not entirely certain yet that he shouldn't be looking for this woman's daughter.

x

"Yes, how may I help you?"

The Agents display their identifications and introduce themselves. "Do you know a Mr. William Rolonio?"

"Very well." Her smile fades as quickly as it had appeared. "Is there a problem?"

"Perhaps. How do you know him?"

"He's a member of a group I belong to."

"You're _Captain_ Holmes of the SS Columbia?"

"Yes, but it's not Navy," she works to contain her growing discomfort. "Perhaps you'd like to sit down, tell me what's happening?" There is one chair and Gibbs takes it.

"We think Mr. Rolonio might be in danger, but so far we haven't been able to find him."

"What sort of danger?" Gibbs answers with silence. "What can I do to help?"

"Do you know an Elizabeth Stillwell? She's from your organization."

Holmes closes her eyes for a second, evidently searching for the name. "Sorry, I don't know her."

"When was the last time you saw Mr. Rolonio?"

"I think it was about a month– no, more than a month ago." Her gaze flickers to the door behind the men. "I … we're pretty busy here. Coming up on End-of-Quarter, tax season rolling in, I don't have as much time for socializing as I'd like."

"It would help our investigation if we understood more about your group. What is Columbia?"

x

Holmes shrugs. "Stripping away the trimmings, we're a group of thirty-three men and women who get together once or twice a month for socializing, fandom, that sort of thing. We have practical duties too. Columbia organizes a Blood Drive three times a year out of Midwood Farms. We arrange for the blood mobile, register people, help out, make calls and so forth. Three of our members, my 'First Officer' among them, also volunteer at a Food Pantry run out of St. Ephraim's Church. Everyone in Starfleet is supposed to contribute something to the community we live in. It's not a condition of membership, but we encourage it."

"Does the phrase 'Gideon Council Chamber' mean anything to you?"

"Beyond the Classic episode?" She thinks it over. "Not especially, why?"

He decides he needs to find out what Michelle Palmer has gleaned from that film. He'll call when he leaves this office and she had better not disappoint him. "We think Rolonio's location may have something to do with that."

A bit more thought. Gibbs' impression is that Holmes thinks things over a lot before she says them. "Sorry, I don't know."

"But you haven't seen him in about a month?" DiNozzo clarifies.

"No."

"What is Rolonio to your organization?"

Again the consideration. "Basically he's a coordinator, makes sure everything runs smoothly. If there's anything Fleet-wide – there are seven ships in Maryland – he organizes it and makes sure everything's working."

"Is there anything going on 'Fleet-wide'?" DiNozzo asks.

Holmes sighs. "Honestly, I've been so swamped here that my private life takes second place - and for the next month or so fandom takes third. I have my contacts, an email buddy list, Facebook, but on the whole I haven't had the time to follow things."

"Do you have a list of your counterparts, the captains of the other ships?" He has information from the web, but that is notorious for getting outdated quickly.

"That I can do." She turns to her computer, manipulates some files and, in less than a minute a list of names and addresses comes out in two pages from the printer. "This is a list of the senior officers of all the ships."

Gibbs accepts the papers. Captains, First and Second Officers, Communications Officers and Bursars, the list is no problem to translate. He hands the papers to DiNozzo, who has their own list out. "Let us know if you hear from Rolonio," Gibbs directs as he hands the woman one of his business cards.

xx

"We go to Edson now?" DiNozzo asks as they hit the street. The man is captain of the SS Saratoga, the second contact on Ziva's list.

It's nearly four-thirty. This investigation is going too slowly. "Have the others to meet us there. I want a Trekkie there when we interview the rest of these people."

"Trekker," DiNozzo reminds him. For this he earns a belated 'wake-up call'. "Thank you, boss."

They get in the car and depart swiftly, but before DiNozzo can use his phone, Gibbs' rings. When he answers it, it's to a surprising and unsettling report that he puts on the speaker so he can drive and for DiNozzo's benefit. It concludes with /we found four weapons that've been modified into, or possibly sold originally as, real weapons. There's a taser, a dart gun and two real guns./

"Confiscate everything; we'll sort it out later." If they can diminish Zabeth's supply of weapons, it can only help.

/Boss, there're three empty spaces on the walls, I've no way to know what was there, and the closet is empty but the positions of the hangers make me think something was there./

"You figure we're looking for a Romulan, McGee?"

"Her uniform, or one of them, was in her bedroom, but as to what she's wearing, I'm clueless./

"I'm gonna let that slide," DiNozzo quips.

"Gather everything, meet us at Hempstead Arms apartments."

xxx

Michael Edson, Captain of the Saratoga, is Security Supervisor on the 1600 to 0000 shift at a four building Apartment Complex on U Street NW.

Gibbs and DiNozzo rendezvous with McGee's car en passant and the agents drive to the complex, where they must clear the Security Booth at the main gate, a radioed call alerting Edson to their arrival. They park in front of the first building and cross the short walkway to the glass door and huge window which display the entire front lobby stark against the dimming light. Outer and inner glass doors beside the Security station form an 'airlock' they must clear to enter the lobby.

The well lighted interior speaks of an overabundance of opulence, the mahogany and gilt chamber more pretentious than portentous, while the shining leather couches seem to reflect management's determination that no one will mar their perfection by sitting on them.

The agents are met beyond the inner Security desk by a tall blond man wearing a navy blue suit rather than the quasi-military uniforms of his subordinates. Edson leads them down a corridor past the elevators and a sharp left into the offices, which are as cramped and drab as the lobby is opulent. It's clear no expense has been spent for the two-room Security Office; the rooms were probably painted when the building was erected and the furniture, such as there is, would be denied a place at any flea market or garage sale in the country.

The outer and inner offices would fit within Gibbs' bullpen, though Michelle Palmer would find her desk crammed into the rear bathroom. Tony notes a Duty Roster for 17 officers posted on the corkboard beside him, and is certain no attempt will ever be made to hold a general meeting here. Gibbs and Edson fit into the front office, DiNozzo in the short corridor outside the door with Ziva beside him looking in while McGee and Palmer, relegated to the inner office, are denied a view of the proceedings.

x

"So, what can I do this evening for NCIS?"

"We understand you're the Captain of your Star Trek group, the SS Saratoga."

"That's right," he says uncertainly. He'd expected his guests - Federal Agents - to be here in connection with the complex he and his officers protect, not the hobby of his faux ship.

Gibbs is particularly aware of the time, or the diminishment of it. "We're looking for Mr. William Rolonio. Do you know him?"

"Sure I know him. We call him the 'Commodore'. Is anything wrong?"

"We think something might have happened to him."

"What?"

It seems as much concern as desire for information, but he's not going to volunteer anything. "When was the last time you saw him?"

"Day before yesterday. He looked fine."

'Finally', Gibbs thinks, 'someone who's seen him this month.' "Do you know where we can find him?"

"Sure. I was supposed to be with him tomorrow, only I can't make it. I'm on 'till midnight and then have 1600 tomorrow. I had to bow out. He's holed up with some of the other Captains – the presidents of the other groups – and some Admirals and the heads of all the other groups in Maryland."

"Where is this?"

"At Gideon."


	9. Showdown at Gideon

Chapter Nine  
Showdown at Gideon

"_Where's_ Gideon?" In his gratification at finally having a decent lead, or at least an intelligible answer, Gibbs' question almost comes out as a bark. Fortunately, because he's quasi-military as a Security Supervisor, Edson isn't put out by the force.

"Well, actually that's what we call it because the event'll be like Gideon. It's a prep Conference and walk-through for this Summer's Star Trek Convention."

"Not at the Meritz?" DiNozzo appeals, foreseeing disaster part deux.

"Yep. July 4th weekend."

"And the shits just keep on coming," DiNozzo mutters, glancing past Ziva at McGee in the small office to his left.

"What?" Edson asks.

"Never mind," Gibbs counsels him, glaring DiNozzo to silence. "We need to find Rolonio right now."

"He's staying at the hotel. I'm sure you can catch him there."

xx

Zabeth, her black ground vehicle hidden in the shadows across the street and she being further obscured in her black Kevlar body suit, watches the Federation complex. This set of buildings is a secure residence for Federation personnel living and working in this native city, therefore inaccessible to her.

She doesn't believe Starfleet Intelligence has Rolonio, though they clearly know his location. They've already consulted, clandestinely, with the Captain of the Columbia, now they're meeting Captain Edson, in charge of Security. Something is going on, the level of tension among the Starfleet officers she's been observing is growing steadily.

Her plans, and her orders, have not changed. Reconnoiter, follow, locate the target and dispatch him.

Then, if possible, escape.

She checks the small projectile weapon on her lap. Not as powerful as the other, it is more easily concealed. Fifteen projectiles; it may have to be enough.

xxx

Tina Ambrosino, Assistant Manager, isn't happy to see five NCIS agents, one more than she'd dealt with on Memorial Day Weekend, at the Registration Counter of the Hotel Meritz. She's so unhappy, in fact, that she doesn't bother with a professional welcoming demeanor. "I'd hoped I'd never see you people again."

"Hadn't looked forward to it either," Gibbs assures the woman across the counter.

"I know it wasn't your faults," she grants, "you saved a lot of lives but I still have nightmares about that Convention."

"As do I," Ziva tells her shortly.

"Yes, well..." Ambrosino knows she's been trumped. The woman had been held captive, tortured and nearly electrocuted by a sadistic murderer. She doesn't know that, for Ziva, life has come full circle.

The Greater East Coast Comic Art Convention, held this past Memorial Day weekend, had started out crowded and potentially quite profitable until a naked, bound and dead Batgirl had been found in one of the rooms. The Con had grown intolerable for Ambrosino even before Wonder Woman's nude corpse had so very dramatically fallen down the waste chute into a dumpster cart in the basement.

Before that convention was over two women had died and two required considerable assistance to recover, all from shocking torture. Ziva had kept what she'd experienced as the madman's captive secret from all but her team and they rarely spoke openly about what had been a life-altering experience for her.

x

"We need to speak to one of your guests," Gibbs tells her shortly.

"Do you have a warrant?"

"Don't need one to talk."

Ambrosino considers carefully and very reluctantly. She could deny them, they'd come back with a warrant and she'd have to see them twice. "There won't be any shooting, will there?" The only shot Gibbs fires is his glare. Ambrosino sighs. "What's his name?"

"William Rolonio."

She consults the computer. "He's in room 514."

x

The Agents stand off-line from the door, backs to the wall, in case Zabeth has already found her target. Gibbs raps sharply. "William Rolonio?" He can hear movement within, followed by a tentative inquiry. "NCIS. We'd like to speak with you."

William Rolonio is five foot nine, thin with a shock of brown hair rumpled as through from sleep. Rather than a Starfleet Commodore's uniform, he wears jeans, a 'Celtic Woman' tee shirt and a bemused expression as he takes in his five visitors. "Yes?"

xx

"Incredible," is all he can say when the agents have completed explaining the problem. "Liz can be a bit ... enthusiastic when it comes to the unusual, but I never imagined this."

"You never recognized she has," Gibbs glances to his team, unable to recall what Ducky had called it.

"Schizotypal Personality Disorder?" DiNozzo saves.

"I knew sometimes she got really into it, the fantasy world we skim; I just felt she was really into role-play, more so than me. I admit, sometimes, it made me a bit uncomfortable. It's a game, a way to have fun, but sometimes she took it a bit far, a bit more seriously than most."

"That why you broke up with her?"

Rolonio is puzzled. "We didn't break up. Who told you that?"

"Her sister Carolyn, after reading Elizabeth's diary."

"We're more on a 'time out' while I sort out some things, like just where we are. And apparently who," he muses, a new and unpleasant aspect of their relationship to consider.

Gibbs glances about the room where the six sit on chairs, the bed or, in DiNozzo's case, stand by the door. However, despite the intended purpose as headquarters for a planning session and base for a walk-through of the hotel facilities by the Convention Planning Committee, it's just a hotel room as mundane as Elizabeth Stillwell's room is exotic.

"How does she feel about this 'time out'?"

"Well, she didn't agree but I had to. I always knew she had ... problems but it's been getting a little much. There were times I'm talking to her and I'm not ... entirely sure who I'm talking to."

"You met Zabeth?" DiNozzo asks.

"Not the way you mean. I mean I know she _calls _herself Zabeth in her role-play with the other Romulans in her group, but she ... I never knew her to take it too ... far." He's evidently beginning to appreciate, from their unsettling explanation of how his life is in danger, how far she's taking it. "I never knew there _was _a 'Zabeth', not in the way you people mean. I mean, this is, well, we have hobby lives we enjoy. My position in the organization has more responsibility, the other Captains too, if we're to accomplish anything."

"Like this convention?"

"We've met a couple of times, we're meeting at 7:00 to go over the last of the details."

It's 5:23. "Elizabeth knows this schedule?"

"Of course."

"Turn them away."

"This is crazy. Look, I can understand that, compared to terrorism and a hundred other '-isms', this must seem strange, maybe even, to some, a little foolish, but it's a hobby, really. None of us take things too ... far."

"Zabeth does," Ziva points out, not letting him get away from reality in excuses for fantasy. Rolonio's discomfort is out for everyone to see, but he's going to be a lot more uncomfortable when this hobby gets him attacked. "Elizabeth Stillwell thinks little enough of this 'time out' that she thinks you betrayed her. She cannot deal with it and confront you so Zabeth has come out to deal with what Elizabeth cannot, and she is going to kill you."

Laid out so baldly, there's little more Rolonio can do to explain away or justify the situation. He turns to Gibbs. "What can I do?"

"Let her catch you."

xxx

If Gibbs' solution had astonished Rolonio, it'd stunned his team. When he'd outlined his plan - as much as he outlined any plan in advance - they were no more confident. Then when he'd summoned Ducky Mallard and Jimmy Palmer, and ordered Agent Watson to bring Carolyn Stillwell to Ground Zero before assuming a defensive position out in the corridor, they could only hope it would succeed.

"Understand," Ducky's voice isn't loud but he keeps his audience's attention fixed, "if we are going to bring this unhappy affair to a peaceable conclusion, your normal methods of dealing with perpetrators will not work."

"Had that when I called you in," Gibbs reminds him.

"Yes, well normally I would expect you to employ your usual method of gaining compliance through an overwhelming display of firepower."

"If you mean surrounding her with Sigs, yeah."

"That is the very thing you must _not _do." If Gibbs is put out, he doesn't show it. "I've been analyzing Miss Stillwell's message and consulting with my resident expert on all things Trekkian," he gives a half-nod to Jimmy Palmer, who has the wisdom not to look smug. "If this message to 'execute Commodore Rolonio' is an order rather than a memorandum, then this will fall under a Romulan's well-developed sense of Duty." He makes sure everyone can hear the capital.

"If this is so, Elizabeth Stillwell's self-induced compulsion can best be equated to the ancient Samurai. Zabeth will be compelled to obey this order - to fulfill her mission - even at the negligible expense of her life."

x

Carolyn Stillwell protests the most strenuously at this, yet neither Ducky nor Gibbs is willing to let the situation devolve.

"My dear, you are our best resource in this," the doctor assures Stillwell when the volume of protests reaches a reasonable level. "No matter how subsumed your sister is by Zabeth, you are her sister. You will, therefore, exist somewhere in her universe."

"Just like we all fit into the 'Elf Lord' world," Gibbs concludes, a private reminder to his team of details he has no intention of sharing. This past Fall, as long as the Agents and Chaplain O'Mallory had conformed to McGee's delusion, which had been brought on by an accidental head injury, they'd had a measure of control, however tenuous, over his delusion and the life-or-death conflict it evoked. "You _might _be seen as yourself. I hope so."

"What do you mean?" Carolyn asks with renewed apprehension.

It's Ducky who provides a more complete answer. "In a previous encounter not dissimilar to this," he avoids glancing at McGee, "the subject in question perceived those he knew within the framework of his delusion. Those he was familiar with were perceived as established characters in his delusion, those individuals he did not know were gradually integrated into the fantasy yet always appearing to him in a Medieval setting. Thus I believe Mister Rolonio will be perceived in his 'Starfleet Commodore' persona, complete with uniform and accoutrements. We, being unknown to Zabeth, may well be perceived as Starfleet confederates of the Commodore. Have you ever been identified in the context of her fantasy?"

"..."

"My dear, if you have, we need to know."

"Well, we were girls, you see. We were kids." Embarrassment turns to defensiveness as she meets their eyes. "It's a 40 year old show! I was a _child _when 'Next Generation' came on. Our _parents _grew up watching–!"

"Yes." He doesn't mean to embarrass her, just to learn.

"Well, okay. I used to ... _used to_ ... be a Vulcan. T'Racy." She catches Jimmy's expression. "I was a _kid _just discovering boys!"

"Palmer."

"I didn't say any–"

"Please," Ducky appeals. The last thing he needs is for Jethro and Mister Palmer to go at this now; and he notices Agent McGee uncomfortable expression and recalls the man's fiancé had been tagged by Abby with that unfortunate nickname during a 'Girls' Night Out' at Club Starbase 86 during the hunt for John DeKalb. He prays this endeavor meets with better success. "You were saying, my dear?"

"I was _saying _that as we grew up we played different roles but we grew up! _Yes_, I was a Starship Captain _once _but I'm a Navy Ensign, a junior _Officer _on a _real _Aircraft Carrier that just happens to be named 'Enterprise' and now this fantasy world is going to get my sister _killed_."

"We have no intention of allowing that to happen," Ducky promises her.

"I wish I'd never found that journal. I wish I'd never come to you people."

"That would not have been a satisfactory alternative."

"No. Okay," Carolyn admits with shuddering breath, "so, what do I do?"

The window to her left shatters and a Romulan rolls in.

x

Zabeth rolls out and to her feet, weapon poised in outstretched arms. She's a blonde panther, Kevlar body suit molding to her as a sensuous second skin, helmet hair style emulating the real thing sharp upon her head.

The agents would have wished for her to be holding an inert mock phaser, but they're confronted by a Beretta 9mm full automatic pistol as black as the neck-to-foot body armor.

Zabeth's startling arrival made the agents revert to training and five guns converge upon the woman within their circle. The outer door opens quickly, Agent Watson's own Sig is poised but she holds, waiting for clearance to fire. Gibbs, in the first second, grabbed Rolonio, yanked him past, and he and DiNozzo closed the gap. Shoulder to shoulder, they block the Operative's aim.

Startled, Ducky had quickly moved out of the 'kill zone' and reverses, comes back in behind the deluded woman in an attempt to shield Carolyn. Jimmy steps beside his wife, intending to back her up without a gun, shoulder to shoulder in front of Carolyn Stillwell. Ducky joins them beside Jimmy. McGee and David, on opposite sides of the intruder, close ranks with Gibbs and DiNozzo in front of Rolonio.

McGee cannot help but think of how much this reminds him of the dénouement of 'That Which Survives', and reads in Palmer's eyes, past Elizabeth Stillwell, that he's probably thinking the same thing.

All this happened in the first two seconds so by the time Zabeth is on her feet and confronting her opposition, she is already cut off from her target.

Zabeth tries to shift to the side, to maneuver into a firing position, to shoot past the four agents and a shrill scream distracts her.

"LIZ, DON'T DO IT!" Carolyn cries.

The Romulan looks back, sees a Vulcan Starfleet Ensign her sister between the tall man and short woman, both Starfleet Security Officers. They're standing in front of the Vulcan Ensign her sister she yells something from between them.

"LIZ, don't! You don't want to hurt him!"

Zabeth blinks and, just for an instant the uniforms are gone, then back, but for that instant the loud Ensign was her sister.

Confusion makes her hesitate. Her sister isn't – she doesn't _have _a – she can't be here – there _is_ no sis–! Vulcans are pacifist branches of Romulans, but she doesn't have a sister, certainly not a Vulcan - who yells in high panicked voice.

"Let's all calm down," Gibbs advises, slowly lowering his Sig.

The Starfleet Intelligence Officer she'd spared at her cover occupation facility lowers his phaser.

The grey-haired man in the black jacket bearing a gold badge emblem lowers his gun.

What is–?

x

Gibbs is mindful of Ducky's advice that their usual tactic could have the opposite effect, that of escalating the crisis rather than overwhelming it. DiNozzo and the others lower their guns but won't put them away.

Carolyn shoves through Jimmy and Michelle and flings her arms wide to block the trio behind her. "Liz, listen to me! This isn't you!"

Zabeth seems to not hear her. Reading her eyes, the Agents see she's included Watson at the open door and is planning how to take out all 10 targets before she dies.

McGee, between Gibbs and DiNozzo, gives a hard, two sentence command that makes Zabeth turn to the four agents shielding Rolonio, blink and hesitate.

"_McGeeeee_."

"'By Order of the Praetor, cease hostilities. You will not kill this man'."

Zabeth's answer is clipped and brief. Gibbs doesn't like the blank look that lights McGee's eyes. "Talk to me, McGee."

"I'm sorry, boss, I could only study a couple dozen phrases."

x

What is happening? The Starfleet Intelligence Operative cannot speak for the Praetor, but who is McGeeeee?

x

"Liz, listen to me! _Look _at me!" Zabeth's looks back over her shoulder to the Vulcan Ensign. A Vulcan so urgent, so nearly frantic? To her sister? She has no sister - no Vulcan sister - her sister...

The Vulcan stands in the open, blocking her would-be protectors with spread arms. "Liz, you are _not _a Romulan." Zabeth turns from the desperate woman, back to her target and sidesteps, seeking a better angle to her target. The Operatives shift to the right, tighten their shield.

x

"LISTEN to me!" Carolyn's commend makes Zabeth look back. "You are Elizabeth Randy Stillwell. You live at–" Liz barks something in Romulan, Carolyn ignores it. "Elizabeth, you're my sister!" Zabeth turns to the shielded Commodore, glances back. "I'm your _sister_. You live in Burleith, Washington DC. You're a Real Estate Agent. This is Earth, _twenty-first _century Earth. You're _not _in the Tal Shiar. Bill's _not_ a Commodore and you do _not_ want to _kill _him!"

She turns back to Rolonio and the humans who would die for him, straightens her aim. "My orders are–"

"There _are _no _orders_!" Zabeth looks back again at the loud human. No, Vulcan. No, she's hum– "You're _not _a Romulan, you're a _Real Estate Agent_! Bill's a Florist! There's no Starfleet, no Federation, no _Empire_! I'm your _sister._ Carolyn." This time Zabeth turns to her, uncertain, her weapon wavers, this time pointing to the blonde woman who would interfere... "Remember? Carolyn? Carolyn _Stillwell_. You are Elizabeth Randy _Stillwell_."

Zabeth is even more uncertain. Things don't make... They aren't clear...

"You're _human_. This is the twenty-first century!"

Twenty-first? No, it's the - it's the...

"You're _not _a Tal Shiar Agent. You're my sister! _Elizabeth_. You're–"

"Carolyn?" Elizabeth's voice is tiny. Zabeth is confused, uncertain. Why did she say that? What world is this? What world is she in?

"Yes," The blonde Vulcan woman – human woman – takes a slow step forward, Zabeth steps back, outflanked. She looks quickly around, trapped and outflanked, three sides, exit blocked, shattered window five stories up, tries to keep all ten targets in sight.

x

Gibbs' eyes on his team tells them 'hold back'. Any motion can undo Stillwell's progress.

"Liz, it's me. Carolyn. Your _sister_."

"I do not _have _a ... You're Vulcan. I have no Vulcan …. Carolyn?" She's even more uncertain, half dazed. It feels as though she's coming out of a dream. Two worlds. Two realities. Which is...?

"Yes."

"Carrie?" She remembers Carrie. Doesn't she? Does she? Carrie's not a Vulcan. This woman – familiar – isn't Vulcan, she's….

"Yes! _Carrie_." Carolyn steps closer, cautiously reaches out. The gun doesn't waver as she takes it in both her hands.

Zabeth can't give up her weapon. She should fire. She has to fire! But …. Carrie….

"You're Carrie?"

"Yes. You're Liz, I'm Carrie, that's all that's real."

"Carrie?"

x

Carolyn eases her hands up Elizabeth's arms, steps closer, widening her sister's arms, draws the confused woman to her, hugs her. Michelle, at Gibbs' nod, steps forward slowly, cautiously, slips the gun from Elizabeth's loose grip, pushes the safety on.

Carolyn just hugs her sister.

Ducky pulls a plastic bottle from his pocket, signals Jimmy toward the bathroom for some water. The agents put away their Sigs.

DiNozzo inches closer to McGee as they're left behind; Rolonio, Gibbs and Ziva joining the sisters. He keeps his voice low so only McTrekker may hear. "Bet this is one story that won't make it into your books, McGuffin."

"Why not, Tony?"

"No climax."

Tim keeps his eyes on the hugging sisters as Ducky and Jimmy approach with Elizabeth's medicine.

"Just the way I like it."

xxx

Midnight. Three hours have passed. Elizabeth has long ago been relieved of her concealed weapons by Ziva and Michelle, a length of electrical wire crossed under one cup of her bra and an ampoule of epinephrine concealed under the other. What this latter, and the needle in the waistband of her biking shorts, are intended to be in the woman's confused mind no one wants to consider. Abby, at her lab, has already called and pronounced them non-lethal, that's enough for the agents.

All save Gibbs and Ducky have long since retired for the night. Tomorrow - today now - none of them are on duty. It's Saint Patrick's Day and there's a somewhat uncommon celebration to prepare for in only fifteen hours.

Gibbs and Rolonio stand up from the bench in the Bethesda's white corridor when Ducky comes out of the hospital room. "How is she, Duck?"

"I'm very pleased to report a happy ending. Ensign Stillwell is with her sister, the young lady is lucid," he glances at Rolonio, "and rather embarrassed, contritely hoping Mr. Rolonio will be understanding."

Bill nods. "We have a lot to talk about." He steps past the Medical Examiner who has revealed to no one how happy he is to have a live patient tonight, enters the room and Gibbs and Ducky are quite content to leave the sterile hospital.

'One happy ending down,' Ducky thinks as he and Gibbs head down the corridor, 'and one more to go.'


	10. Let No One Put Asunder

Chapter Ten  
Let No One Put Asunder

Siobhan O'Mallory locks her bedroom door even though her partner's long-standing order forbids anyone other than themselves to enter the Rectory's second floor. Private as these living quarters are, she needs the extra reassurance that her solitude won't be broken. She looks down at herself; her gown seems a sea of glittering white, the glitter coming from a myriad of tiny crystals that enhance the off-the-shoulders dress. Her long red hair tickles her bare shoulders, she keeps the sensation in the midst of a thousand others, trying to impress every second of this day deep in her memory where she'll have it clear and sharp for all time.

She turns from the door and her heart is hit hard by the realization of something she's known in her head for three months.

After today this is no longer her room.

x

The past few months in this room were only supposed to be temporary, a few days or weeks, an emergency stop-over until she'd found an apartment to replace the one that madman had blown up. The parish, particularly the Vestry, had had little tolerance for male and female priests in the same Rectory, 'What would people say?' having become a familiar refrain.

But so much had happened in nearly half a year that she's been here which had changed so many expectations. This room became no longer a stopgap or a temporary lodging; through adversity, and through the willingness of people to overlook certain overblown 'concerns' because of that adversity, it had become home. Some people hadn't been understanding, having only seen the impropriety existing mostly in the deep recesses of their own minds and had still objected to a woman priest living in the Rectory. And George Donaldson - dear George - had diplomatically dismissed the concerns and objections, never openly displaying how thoroughly he'd ignored them.

But now this truly is no longer her room, and it's happened in such a way as, in the beginning, none of them could have conceived. Not by her moving on to another apartment - bless the Vestry who couldn't find a suitable one the parish could afford and especially the members who hadn't even looked. Nor is it through any other means she could've foreseen half a year ago. She's moving out into an apartment, all right, but it's one she'll share.

x

The room has been stripped of almost all her personal belongings, what little she has having been moved to her new apartment, only one last small suitcase remains upon the bed, and up top in that open suitcase is an open box containing the hand carved wood Wedding Cross that James and Michelle Palmer had brought her from their Honeymoon in Hawaii. Her fingertips caress the wood and the two interlinking rings set in the junction. She'd kept it to the end, had wanted to see it, to touch it one last time before sending it on. Tonight she'll place it on the nail already set over the bed she and Timmy will share for the very first time before….

She looks down at the white gown that flows from her bare shoulders to the floor. The dress sparkles in the sunlight streaming through the window beside her.

"Oh God," she whispers, unable to contain the joy that fills her to overflowing, "it's really real." Her breath quickens. She can barely believe, though she's been preparing for almost three months, that: "I'm really doing this."

But no matter how she's longed for this moment, she's leaving a comfortable – no, almost comfortable, a stable – no, almost stable – life and going into one that scares her almost as much as it thrills her.

She crosses the room to the wooden prei dieu set facing the corner and, gathering up the gown out of the way so it won't get wrinkled, she kneels.

She'd purposely set the kneeler this way months ago, leaving herself no distraction, nothing to see but her favorite crucifix, the one she's already arranged to be transferred to over her Chaplain's office desk at Enkiss while she's gone. Christ is before the brown wood but He's not nailed to it. Instead, His arms are extended to her and His face is wreathed in a beatific smile.

x

"Father," she whispers, emotion robbing her voice, "you've led me here and allowed me to come to this. You've guided me in all things and I thank you always." She closes her eyes, tries to feel peace rather than the myriad of emotions that make her voice quiver.

"I love you - and I love Timmy. I think I've loved you both equally long. Sometimes ... sometimes I'm not sure..." She can't say it. It's blasphemous. It _must _be wrong to admit that sometimes she's not sure who she loves more or longest, but to think it is to express it so she thinks it - and tries to let it go.

"Please ... I don't know what to do anymore, and I can't wait to do it. I want this with all my heart, for longer than I can remember. I'm happier than I've ever known ... and more _terrified _than I can stand."

She reopens her eyes, focuses on the tiny ones before her. "I've tried to learn how to be a wife, and ever since he asked me I don't know how. Seminary, and so much more, taught me how to be a Priest but sometimes, looking back, that one seems easy. In a little while I'll be a _wife _and I still don't have any idea how. Please. Please teach me how, how to please him as I've tried to please you."

She longs to feel the peace that prayer normally brings, but this time she realizes her own fear, her own confusion, her own joyous apprehension and anticipation keep her from feeling it.

No, not fear, she's not afraid of the life she's embarking on, seemingly without rudder or mast or oars, or rather it's not just fear. It's like, in the past ten minutes, she's lost all the bedrock that'd supported her for so long. It's as though the closer she gets to her wedding, to Timmy, the more the world tries to tip her off.

"So much is changing" she whispers with shuddering voice. "I knew it would, but I didn't _know _it until now. Being a priest is the only thing that won't change and that's going to change more than I can imagine. I knew who Mother O'Mallory was; I have no idea who Mother McGee will be. I don't know her - and I can't wait to be her. But where am I when the world is dumping me off?

"I love Timmy. I've always loved him even when I wasn't supposed to. A priest doesn't love a man committed to another woman but even when he was I did. I couldn't help it. I tried, I really tried _not_ to love him but I did. But then she was gone, out of his heart and I could love him openly and truly. And he loved me - and now I'm going to marry him.

"I knew him as a girl, in the first rush, but now ... he'll be my husband. I'll be his wife. _How _do I be a wife? I don't know how to be a wife. I can cook, I can sew, I can - I can bear his children, all those nice little traditional lyrics, but how do I be his wife?

"How do I love him? Love him like he deserves? He was my first - my last - my only..."

x

When they'd separated they were 18 and 17, he went to college - MIT - to fulfill his life and she'd gone to seek her fame, her fortune, her _Destiny_. She'd had all her dreams to be the next Great American Author and none of the discipline to make them real. Those dreams had led her to New York, to Greenwich Village, to the Author Capital.

She hadn't found fame, she hadn't found fortune, she'd found hunger and too much stubbornness to go home. She'd found eviction and shelters and the street and a Church in Brooklyn and a priest who inspired her with _his _dream of a community where white, black, straight, gay, rich, poor, democrat and republican could live in harmony in God's family. She'd worked in that church, watching the reality of his dream at work as she swept floors and polished gold and silver and prepared the Altar. She'd decided she'd wanted _his _dream and found it in the Seminary.

She'd gone to New York at 17 to seek her Destiny, never imagining that, at 22, her destiny would be within a white collar.

x

Now eight years later, thirteen after they'd separated, fifteen since they'd met but two since they'd been reunited she's come full circle - but she's still as lost as when she'd been hungry, dirty and begging on the street; for in focusing her life on the Spiritual, turning her back on the carnal, she'd told herself she could never completely fulfill–

"I don't know men," she whispers, surprising herself, feeling almost blasphemous to realize that she reminds herself of the Annunciation when Mary, told who she would bear, had replied 'How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?' "I could've, I didn't _want _to. I told myself I had to be careful of my place, my reputation as a priest and now I'm getting married and I don't know _how _to anymore. How can I make Timmy happy when I barely remember what made him happy in the first place? I don't know how to make him happy - make us happy - and I still can't wait to do it."

She shakes her head, not even sure this is what she's asking. She doesn't know what she's asking, feels she's only giving in to heartfelt babbling. Prayer for her has always seemed so focused, so clear, and now she doesn't even know what she's asking.

x

"I've counseled so many new wives, new husbands, and until now I was so sure I knew what I was talking about. They came to me later saying marriage wasn't what they'd expected - how could I have given them advice? How dare I have given them advice when now I know I never knew what marriage is?" Her mind flashes back to the last Star Wars chapter, when the wizened, hooded Emperor is killing Luke Skywalker and says, so faux sadly, 'young Jedi, only now, at the end, do you understand'. "How could I have done all those Pre-Canas and think I knew what I was talking about?"

She'd done almost all the Pre-Cana sessions, even the ones for weddings George officiated at, and then it felt so strange to be sitting with Timmy while George led her own three, an hour on each Wednesday evening. There was no getting around them even though she'd led so many, but to be sitting in the Rectory living room, being on the receiving end...

None of the advice had seemed familiar, though she'd given it. None of the counseling seemed familiar. Family. Children. Communication. Openness. Trust.

_Sex_.

She only remembers blushing all through that part, her liturgical partner of these past two years talking frankly about sex with her and the man she'd be doing it with at her side - and blushing even more because she had blushed.

x

"I'm so stupid. I'm _sorry_. I didn't know. I gave advice and it was right and now I'm kneeling here and I don't have any advice for _myself_."

She tries to swallow back the apprehension, the uncertainty. She wants to feel only the joy she feels, the good anticipation, but apprehension keeps flaring, keeps undermining her. Even when she wasn't in control, wasn't sure, when she'd prayed she always came away feeling sure and now nothing is sure. "How do I be a wife? Please tell me. You taught me how to be a Priest, eight years you've sustained me in your service and now I'm totally lost. 'Love will find a way', I tell so many people. I'm such an _idiot _because how can I find a way when I can't even find myself?

"God, I've spent the past two years here _looking _like I've got it all together, and now that I really need it, I'm coming apart.

"I love Timmy. I'm sure of this. I want to marry him, spend every minute with him, spend all my life with him and I've known for months what I'm doing and now I'm so _confused_. Pl–"

There's a rap at her door. Too soon. Today the 'no visitor' rule is turned off - at least for her Maid-of-Honor - but it's too _soon_.

"Mother?" Melanie Velez's voice filters through the wood. "It's time."

Siobhan sighs, crosses herself, stands up and lets the copious material of the white gown fall before her. She clutches her hands before her lips, warming them by her shuddering breath.

'I had a thousand plans. I dreamed of today when we were in High School and it's nothing like my dreams. We used to go to movies and make out and never see a bit of the film and I knew _then _what kind of wife I'd be and now I can't find her. I used to write 'Siobhan McGee' over and over in my notebook with hearts and stars and flowers but I never imagined 'Mother McGee' and now it's going to be and I don't know who she is. Please Father, _tell _me who she _is_.'

"Mother?" the soft rap comes again. "Mother _McGee_?"

The voice seems to smile, but Siobhan looks up to the ceiling, 'Oh God, I want that so_ badly_.'

x

She descends the stairs behind the black woman in her royal blue gown, but at the base she stops at the tall mirror on her left, no longer only afraid, having opened herself and allowed confusion in to mesh with her joyous anticipation. George had placed this mirror here long ago for final inspections, she now inspects her image, searching for flaws. She adjusts the useless glasses she's held onto until today and brushes back her flame-red hair from her bare shoulders with trembling hands.

"If you check that thing anymore," Melanie Velez says from behind her, "your eyes are going to wear out the material."

Siobhan can't help but laugh, though it comes out quivering. Her Maid-of-Honor, closest friend and confidant here as a Eucharistic Minister, has always been able to break through to her. With Melanie she has the most casual relationship, more so than she has with any other woman in the parish since Tina - dear Tina - had died. Oh, how she wishes Tina had lived to be here today. They were a trio, a true trio that could only be parted by death but still, in her quiet moments, she feels the spirit of Tina Dumas with her even now.

She's shared secrets, she and Melanie, thoughts and dreams and so forth, such an easy relationship built over these two years that she can be herself even when they're vesting for Mass. But now they're not in the Sacristy, not preparing for a Service - at least not a regular one - and her friend wears her off-the-shoulder blue gown with far more ease and confidence than she feels.

_She's _not the one getting married.

x

But it's not right to be nervous, Siobhan chides herself. She'd always thought she wouldn't be, had always been _sure _that, if this day could ever possibly come, somewhere in a distant dream, she wouldn't be.

But it hadn't been a distant dream. It had been a girlhood dream, then an impossible one when, for years, they'd gone their separate ways, then a distant one again when they'd found each other and found out how separate they'd grown - NCIS Agent and Priest - then a real dream when he'd declared his love for her and then a true dream when he'd proposed, and now – _now_….

But preparation for the wedding hadn't immunized her from this apprehension. 'I'm going to be a wife. _How _do I be a wife?'

"Mother?" Melanie glances at the grandfather clock ticking loudly in the far right corner, sure Siobhan doesn't hear it, and not only for familiarity.

"I've done more than twenty weddings," she says in shuddering voice, trying to break the feeling. She's done eight since being appointed here as Curate, including the Palmers' nuptials at the Lincoln Memorial, and hadn't ever been a bit nervous.

"But you haven't gotten married twenty times."

"_God forbid_." She tugs at her left sleeve. Three fittings and it's still an eighth of an inch shorter than her right.

"Not nervous, are you?"

Siobhan glances up into the mirror at her friend behind her. "No." She pulls at the horizontal 'neckline'. It just will not stay _straight_.

"You're not?" Melanie's tone, her knowing smile, drags the truth out.

"_I'm scared to death_!"

"I know you are," she says in an atrociously heavy imitation of Siobhan's brogue, emphasizing that it's even grown heavier in her nervousness. "It shows."

Siobhan hates that she's so easy to read. Until now she can't fib, even a tiny falsehood and look someone in the eye, so she used to telegraph it, all unconsciously, in taking off her glasses. And when her emotions get the better of her, anyone who knows her well can read it in how heavy her brogue becomes. And unlike the glasses that she can do something about - that she _will_ do something about - her words give her away when she's unaware of them.

"You love him?" Melanie cuts in on her silent self-assault, bringing her back to the moment.

"Such a question!" she turns on her friend, pushing her useless glasses back up to the top of her nose. "Of _course _I love him."

"Then you've nothing to be afraid of."

x

This stops her. She can't think of a thing to argue the point, so she turns back to the mirror. "Except this _dress_!"

"Why? It's perfect."

"_It's_–" she tries to counter, but can't. A neckline she imagines not being perfectly straight across an upper chest that's not either, a sleeve an eighth inch off that probably isn't... "perfect."

"Look, the dress is the least of your worries. Ceremony, reception, then tonight he gets you out of it and you jump his bone."

Siobhan isn't quite startled, it all goes with their casual ease built up over two years of friendship, but perhaps this is just a bit _too _casual. Delightful - and distracting - as the thought sounds, Melanie is still her acolyte. She turns back on her. "I'm still your priest," she reminds her archly, trying to preserve some decorum.

"You _were _a priest," Velez replies with a salacious grin. "Tonight you're the virgin sacrifice."

Siobhan is certain her face reflects her shock - this time she _is _shocked - but Velez's grin just widens. "At least you forgot the dress."

"Yes, well..." It _was _a good distraction, but she's never going to tell her friend that 'I haven't been a virgin since Timmy's parents took that long Labor Day weekend.' Instead she reminds her firmly "There _is _such a thing as perspective."

"And a firm bo–"

"That's _e_–" The chimes of the grandfather clock in the opposite corner of the living room beside them sound the hour. '_Three o'clock_!' She's lost track of more than the dress.

x

"Last seconds as a free woman," Velez says as she picks up her blue and Siobhan's white bouquet from the large table beside her.

"That's something I'll never miss."

"So, _Miss _O'Mallory," Melanie hands her the white flowers, "ready?"

"No." Siobhan takes off her glasses, holds them in her hand and considers them for a moment. "I've needed these since I was thirteen."

"So?" Velez can't see the point, not now.

Siobhan drops them onto the hardwood floor where they land open. She looks down at them, her needed aid for so long. Legally blind for years, fearful of going completely blind as her vision gradually deteriorated, she'd used the glasses as a crutch until the day her vision - or lack of it - had nearly destroyed her. Because of horrendous vision that she hadn't countered because of misguided piety, she'd nearly died without seeing the face of her murderer.

Never again. Never, ever again.

She hadn't told even her best friends beyond Timmy but, after a set of Lasik treatments, for the first time her face is bare and the room is clear. She'd worn plain glass, first in one frame, then both, since the treatments until this moment, this long-anticipated gesture symbolic of how much of her old life she's leaving behind.

The glasses used to define her, and for years she'd allowed them to without realizing it. Since the Lasik treatments she'd kept the glasses, held on to them, just for now, for this moment, for this gesture. No one knew it, but her eyes are clear and now she turns her back on blindness, turns her back on her old life. Goodbye to the wild, thoughtless girl she'd been, goodbye to the woman who'd believed that if God meant her to have perfect vision He'd have given it to her. Goodbye to the woman who wouldn't see a man's love when it was staring her in the face. Goodbye shortsighted Siobhan O'Mallory.

She holds her gown clear, raises her foot and brings it down hard. The glasses make the most satisfying snap, shattering in a tinkling of glass.

When she looks up, Melanie's staring at her, mouth open and eyes wide. The look is a nice bonus.

"_Now _I'm ready."

Smiling, Siobhan leads her astonished friend down the short corridor beside the staircase and out of the Rectory.

x

Her five closest friends, each gowned identically to Melanie, meet them in Hamilton Hall. Each does a double-take and Siobhan, revealing nothing, thinks they probably assume she's gone to contacts. She'll clear this misinterpretation up later. They don't know she's not the same woman they saw an hour ago.

Siobhan hears the organ in the loft next door through the open foyer door beyond her blue gowned friends and her heart races, not with fear now but excitement. She doesn't even hear the quiet words that pass among the friends; her mind is next door, in the Sacristy where Timmy, Agent DiNozzo and George await their cue. She's in her body but her soul is next door, watching, waiting for her body to catch up.

The organ begins the 'Trumpet Voluntary', the notes wafting through the open door to the foyer and she knows Timmy and Agent DiNozzo in their black tuxedos are leaving the Sacristy ahead of George in his white vestments to genuflect before the tabernacle and take their places before the Sanctuary, before the white and gold fronted Altar.

Her nerve deserts her. She can't move.

x

"Ready, girls?" Melanie's voice cuts through the knot of blue-gowned women as she marshals them into position, reaches back and gives Siobhan an unnoticed tug on her arm. Siobhan's grateful for her aid; she can barely think two sentences together.

"Twenty weddings..." she says shakily. "It's all so different from here."

"And you couldn't be happier," Rachael reminds her as they start out the door into the foyer that links Hamilton Hall to the Church.

Siobhan can't find the words to answer, but her friend is right.

xx

She doesn't even remember, moments after it happened, entering the foyer; her thoughts are on the image of Timmy waiting for her and they're just suddenly there, gathered in the foyer out of sight of those in the church. Rosemary steps out, crosses the narthex to the beginning of the aisle to lead the individual, two hundred foot walk toward the Sanctuary while the others wait to take their turns.

As the music builds, one by one the women depart, Rachael moving out when Rosemary has taken her position before the front left pew, Nicole taking her place before the large doors when Rachael is a hundred feet away, midway through the huge Gothic chamber. The music grows richer as her friends take their turns, then swells as Melanie leaves her.

Siobhan, alone too soon, sure the bouquet is trembling hard enough to shake all the petals off, steps to the rear of the church before the huge bronze doors, to where the tuxedoed Donald Mallard awaits. She holds the flowers before her, certain she could water them with her palms.

"You look lovely, my dear," Ducky tells her softly, taking her arm.

She wishes her father could do this, but knows he's watching with the Saints while her mother's up front with her sister, cousins...

She sees the Sanctuary far away and suddenly the church seems to have turned around. Since coming here she's performed eight weddings - from _that _end of the aisle.

Melanie has taken her position, hundreds of people are looking back, and above her the organ music changes to Lohengrin's 'Wedding March'. Her heart pounds harder, thumps in her chest as she looks into the sea of friends with naked eyes. She's not sure if she's floating, it's more like she's light-headed - or is ecstasy confusing her? She can't find a word for her feelings, all of them crowd into her at once. She looks up the long aisle where Timmy stands watching her and a blast of joy almost knocks her off her feet.

Timmy.

"I'm scared, Ducky," she whispers, her trembling voice testifying to the depth of that emotion in the confusing maelstrom.

"You will not be frightened in a moment," the venerable man assures her as he guides her forward, skillfully making it appear as though she's leading him.

x

She takes the first steps into the Wedding March, feels the notes vibrate through her body and her apprehension - her fear - switches off.

Just that, one step and there's no room left in her for fear. Timmy's up there looking at her. George waits at the center of the Sanctuary, vested in white and gold, a line of black tuxedos to her right and blue gowns to her left, hundreds of people watching her – hundreds. Timmy. _Timmy_!

She notices - peripherally - as she passes the first of five sets of stained glass windows, how the multitude of crystals burst into color when she crosses the stream of late afternoon sunlight.

'It's real,' she thinks, gasping, unable to breathe fast enough. 'It's really real! I'm getting married! Timmy! I'm really getting _Married_!'

"Are you all right, my dear?" Ducky whispers.

She realizes he feels her trembling, hears her gasps. She fights to bring them down but joy won't let her; her heart slams about in her chest and tries to reach the Sanctuary before her. Her eyes are moist with happy tears. "I'm getting _Married_, Ducky!" she whispers on a wave of ecstasy, her voice unable to carry all her joy.

He looks up at her with a knowing smile. "Yes, you are."

x

Far away at the end of the miles-long aisle George Donaldson, clad in gold-trimmed white vestments, awaits. Timmy and Agent DiNozzo and a line of five tuxedoed friends disappear into the crowd on the right and Melanie, Rosemary, Rachael, Nicole, Francine and Alexandra, aligned to her left, are also lost beyond the front row.

There are nine white on black clad acolytes to fill the duties of five - no one wanted to be left out and she couldn't bring herself to exclude anyone. Behind and above her, she knows the choir loft is equally overstaffed. As she walks slowly to the music, feet barely touching the floor, it doesn't seem that one more person could squeeze into the pews that surround her without rupturing the ancient marble walls.

The Wedding March swells, the reverberating notes play through her until she feels her body can't contain all her joy.

She's not sure how the light-years are traversed but she's at the step to the Sanctuary, bends slightly for Ducky's kiss on her cheek. He puts her hand in Timmy's - so warm - and magically vanishes.

Bill Landros, dressed in cassock and cotta, stands at the priest's right, the boy holding open and turning the pages of an extra-large red book should Donaldson need to reference the familiar passages.

Timmy's black lapel bears a tiny green shamrock, the lone flower striking in the shiny material, but Siobhan can only look up the three inches into his green eyes, lost in them, willing to be lost forever. She hears George, beside her on her left, commence the traditional opening words, but she can't bring herself out of those eyes.

x

He blinks and the world switches on. "...union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy, for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is God's will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord."

Siobhan feels her heart nearly burst when George says 'children'. Her children - Timmy's children - her and Timmy's children!

"Therefore marriage is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God."

She's waited for these next words for fifteen years and her soul and body tremble with the hearing. So long - so very long - and now:

"Into this union Timothy McGee and Siobhan Marie O'Mallory now come to be joined." Through the tiny microphone attached to his chasuble, Donaldson's voice fills the vast nave. "If any of you can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married," his voice fills every corner and crevice, "speak _now_, or else _forever hold your peace_."

He waits the required moment, then his smile vanishes and he addresses them firmly. Siobhan only looks at him through the corner of her eye, because she can't turn away from Timmy. She doesn't ever want to turn away from him.

"I require and charge you both, here in the presence of God, that if either of you know of any reason why you may not be united in marriage lawfully and in accordance with God's Word, you do now declare it."

Siobhan has said everything she ever intends to say, and this man is still before her, and still silent.

x

Satisfied, Donaldson's smile is back. "Siobhan," his voice reminds her, emphasizes rather, that she should be facing him. She turns forward but still keeps her right hand in Timmy's, her soul resonating with the words. "Will you have this man to be your husband; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?"

She looks up to Timmy at her right and is astonished. He's the young High School bookworm who'd just worked up the nerve to ask the wild child cheerleader on their first date. She blinks and he's the man she'll date for the rest of her life. "I will."

Her voice is almost lost, riding the surf of ecstasy. She turns back to George, attentive to his words, wanting them in her heart forever.

"Timothy, will you have this woman to be your wife; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?"

Silence.

x

Something's wrong.

_Nothing can be wrong_!

Siobhan stares up, wide eyed, to the man beside her, the man who's always been beside her. His lips _are _moving, but nothing's coming out.

Shielded by their close bodies, DiNozzo jams his elbow into Timmy's ribs. "_I will_!"

'We'll laugh about it later,' she thinks. She'd gone from rapture to her heart seizing, but now it beats again and all joy is back. Through the corner of her eye, she sees George turn his attention to the congregation.

"Will all of you witnessing these promises do all in your power to uphold these two persons in their marriage?"

"_We will_" seems to fill the world.

x

Siobhan stands beside Timmy through the familiar prayers and readings. She'll never forget them. She wants them, all these moments, in her every dream. And though she'll cherish these memories forever, it's the hand of the man in hers that fills her life.

Then, facing one another, Tim takes her right hand and, at Donaldson's direction of each phrase, repeats to her: "In the Name of God ... I, Timothy ... take you, Siobhan ... to be my wife ... to have and to hold ... from this day forward ... for better for worse ... for richer for poorer ... in sickness and in health ... to love and to cherish ... until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow."

He releases her hand, she takes his. In the depth of her emotion her brogue is strong and she doesn't need George's prompting, the words are engraved on her heart. She feels she's waited her entire life for the chance to say

"In the Name of God I, Siobhan, take you Timothy to be my _husband_, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until we are parted by death. _This is my solemn vow_."

Donaldson, smoothing his wry smile at having been left behind, turns to Tony. "Do you have the rings?"

x

From his jacket pocket DiNozzo brings two gold bands and hands them to the priest. The larger, wider one is gold, glittering in a line that forms intricate Irish knots. It'd take a microscope to reveal the line as hundreds of ultra-tiny hearts. The band is engraved within _Gra anois agus go deo_: 'Love now and forever'. Siobhan's is a golden Claddagh ring with a diamond in the heart and the same dedication within.

Ann King comes to Donaldson's left holding an ornate golden water bucket two inches filled, while Bill continues to hold the large red book at the priest's right. Donaldson holds the rings in his right hand, takes the balled rod and sprinkles Holy Water upon the rings.

"Bless, O Lord, these rings to be signs of the vows by which this man and this woman have bound themselves to each other, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." He then gives the Claddagh ring to Tim.

Tim takes her left hand, holds the band in his right and repeats "Siobhan, I give you this ring ... as a symbol of my vow ... and with all that I am ... and all that I have ... I honor you," he touches the band to the tip of her thumb, "in the Name of the Father," to her index finger, "and of the Son," to the tip of her middle finger, "and of the Holy Spirit," he slips the ring down her finger to its place, "Amen."

Siobhan then takes the larger ring and his left hand and, again unable to wait for her partner's guidance, says "Timothy, I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow," her voice catches, tears of joy glisten in her eyes but she fights the catch down, "and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen."

She carefully wipes tears from her eyes, cautious of smudging her blue mascara.

x

Donaldson, nearly as happy as they, directs them to kneel, to join hands and he wraps the white stole that hangs before him about their hands. His prayer over them, his hands on their heads, concludes "and as you are bound forever with God, may you also be bound together in heart and soul in His love." Then they rise, he unbinds them, has them turn to face the crowd and his amplified voice fills the huge church.

"Now that Timothy and Siobhan have given themselves to each other by solemn vows, with the joining of hands and the giving and receiving of rings, I pronounce that they are husband and wife, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

"Those whom God has joined together, let no one put asunder."

"_Amen_."

o

Next Episode: Nothing Ventured: Mysterious deaths spark one of NCIS' strangest cases, while in Ireland...


End file.
